Heterologous Expression of Amylase Gene from Saccharomycopsis fibuligera in an Industrial Strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

An α-amylase encoding gene was amplified by polymerase chain reaction from Saccharomycopsis fibuligera and inserted into a shuttle vector YEp352,together with the yeast phosphoglycerate kinase 1 promoter and α-factor signal gene. The recombinant expression plasmid pLA8α was transformed into an industrial strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Sc\|11. The activity of the α-amylase produced by the transformant Sc-11-pLA8α was 6.3 U/mL and the starch utilization rate in YPS medium was 42 %. The purified amylase was analyzed by SDS-PAGE,showing a molecular weight of 55×10～3 protein band. Furthermore, the residual sugar, ethanol and some volatile compounds in the fermented worts under simulating brewing conditions were determined by chromatographic analyses. The fermentation characteristics of Sc-11-pLA8α were similar to that of Sc-11 and only minor changes in the concentration of flavor compounds could be observed.