Improving Xylose Fermentation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by Expressing Nuclear-Localized Hexokinase 2

Understanding the relationship between xylose and the metabolic regulatory systems is a prerequisite to enhance xylose utilization in recombinant S. cerevisiae strains. Hexokinase 2 (Hxk2p) is an intracellular glucose sensor that localizes to the cytoplasm or the nucleus depending on the carbon source. Hxk2p interacts with Mig1p to regulate gene transcription in the nucleus. Here, we investigated the effect of nucleus-localized Hxk2p and Mig1p on xylose fermentation. The results show that the expression of HXK2^S14A, which encodes a constitutively nucleus-localized Hxk2p, increased the xylose consumption rate, the ethanol production rate, and the ethanol yield of the engineered yeast strain by 23.5%, 78.6% and 42.6%, respectively. The deletion of MIG1 decreased xylose utilization and eliminated the positive effect of Hxk2p. We then performed RNA-seq and found that the targets of Hxk2p^S14A on xylose were mainly genes that encode RNA-binding proteins. This is very different from the known targets of Mig1p and supports the notion that the Hxk2p-Mig1p interaction is abolished in the presence of xylose. These results will improve our understanding of the interrelation between the Snf1p-Mig1p-Hxk2p glucose signaling pathway and xylose utilization in S. cerevisiae and suggests that the expression of HXK2^S14A could be a viable strategy to improve xylose utilization.