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Subject: search.filters.subject.Carbon Source

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    Carbon utilization profile of a thermophilic fungus, Thermomyces lanuginosus using phenotypic microarray
    (Scientific Research Publishing, 2013-09) Mchunu, Nokuthula Peace; Permaul, Kugen; Alam, Maqsudul; Singh, Suren
    The thermophilic filamentous fungus, Thermomyces lanuginosus produces the largest amount of xylanase reported. In addition to this, it expresses large amount of other enzymes that have been used indus- trially or have academic interest. Thus, this fungus has a potential to be applied for biomass conversion to produce biofuel or other applications. In this study, the Biolog system was used to characterize the utilisa- tion and growth of T. lanuginosus on 95 carbon sources. The carbohydrates based compounds, both single sugars and oligosaccharide, showed the best utilisation profile, with the pentose sugar xylose in- ducing the highest growth, followed by trehelose, raf- finose, D-mannose turanose fructose and glucose. Among oligosaccharides, sucrose had the highest my- celium formation followed by stachyose, maltose, maltotriose, glycogen and dextrin. Interestingly the fungus also grew well on cellobiose suggesting that this fungus can produce cellulose hydrolysing pro- teins. D-alanine was the best amino acid to promote fungal growth while the effect of other amino acids tested was similar to the control. These results dem- onstrate the ability of this fungus to grow relatively well on most plant based compounds thus making this fungus a possible candidate for plant biomass conver- sion which can be applied to a number of biotechno- logical applications including biofuel production.