Constitutive expression of alkaline β-mannanase in recombinant Pichia pastoris

Alkaline β-mannanase has important applications for specific industrial processes like pulp bleaching and the detergent industry. The low yield of alkaline β-mannanase produced from native microbes such as alkaliphilic Bacillus limits its applications. Pichia pastoris is the most efficient heterologous system to produce alkaline mannanase. However, the previous use of the AOX system required large amount of methanol and sophisticated operation strategy, which are undesirable in large scale production. In this study, we established a safe and simple constitutive expression process for mannanase production in P. pastoris. The mannanase gene was successfully expressed under the control of GAP promoter. Sequential optimization of the constructed strains was also performed including the copy number optimization and co-expression of chaperone genes. A two-stage feeding strategy was then applied for the finally optimized strain. After 96 h fermentation, a production level of 2980 U/mL was finally reached, illustrating the potential of the GAP constitutive expression system for industrial scale preparation of alkaline β-mannanase.