Figure 6. Ethanol production by Fusarium oxysporum mutants pBARGPE1-Hxt-5, pBARGPE1-Hxt-6, pBARGPE1-1 and wild type strain 11C during (A) the consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) of alkali treated wheat straw and (B) the fermentation of glucose.

For CBP, the shake flask cultivation of delignified straw were conducted as essentially described by Christakopoulos et al. [9] with varying length of the oxygen limiting growth phase. Glucose fermentation was carried out in 100 ml conical flask containing 30 ml minimal media [51] supplemented with 10 mM glucose. For the initial aerobic growth phase, medium was inoculated with fungal spores (10⁵ ml⁻¹), plugged with sterile cotton wool and incubated at 30°C in a shaking incubator for 24 h at 150 rpm under dark. Thereafter, flasks were plugged with cork and sealed with parafilm and incubated at 50 rpm, 30°C for different time points. Ethanol produced in both the cultures was estimated using QuantiChrom™ Ethanol Assay Kit (DIET-500) (BioAssay Systems, USA) according to manufacturer’s instruction. Results are based on two experiments, each with three replicates per strain/mutant per medium. Bars indicate the SEM (LSD_0.05 A = 25.06, LSD_0.05 B = 29.67).