Stepwise metabolic engineering of Candida tropicalis for efficient xylitol production from xylose mother liquor

BACKGROUND: Commercial xylose purification produces xylose mother liquor (XML) as a major byproduct, which has become an inexpensive and abundant carbon source. A portion of this XML has been used to produce low-value-added products such as caramel but the remainder often ends up as an organic pollutant. This has become an issue of industrial concern. In this study, a uracil-deficient Candida tropicalis strain was engineered to efficiently convert XML to the commercially useful product xylitol. RESULTS: The xylitol dehydrogenase gene was deleted to block the conversion of xylitol to xylulose. Then, an NADPH regeneration system was added through heterologous expression of the Yarrowia lipolytica genes encoding 6-phosphate-gluconic acid dehydrogenase and 6-phosphate-glucose dehydrogenase. After process optimization, the engineered strain, C. tropicalis XZX-B4ZG, produced 97.10 g L(− 1) xylitol in 120 h from 300 g L(− 1) XML in a 5-L fermenter. The xylitol production rate was 0.82 g L(− 1 )h(− 1) and the conversion rate was 92.40 %. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, this study performed a combination of metabolic engineering and process optimizing in C. tropicalis to enhance xylitol production from XML. The use of C. tropicalis XZX-B4ZG, therefore, provided a convenient method to transform the industrial by-product XML into the useful material xylitol. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12934-021-01596-1.