Improved cellulase production via disruption of PDE01641 in cellulolytic fungus Penicillium decumbens

To investigate the function of PDE01641, the homologue of Neurospora crassa NCU05137, during cellulase production in Penicillium decumbens, the PDE01641 encoding gene was knocked out in the present work. The PDE01641 deletion mutant showed enhanced cellobiohydrolase activity and β-glucosidase activity compared to the parental strain 114-2. Increased transcription of the main cellulase and hemicellulase genes in ΔPDE01641 gave evidence that PDE01641 might affect the process associated with the regulation of cellulolytic enzymes expression. Furthermore, the deletion of PDE01641 from the genome of hypercellulolytic industrial strain JU-A10-T resulted in 36% and 80% increase in cellulase activity and hemicellulase activity respectively. These results revealed that PDE01641 plays an important role in the regulation of cellulolytic enzyme production in P. decumbens, and the engineering strain constructed in this work could be potentially used in bioenergy production.