Anaerobic fungi reside in the gut of herbivore and synergize with associated methanogenic archaea to decompose ingested plant biomass. Despite their potential for use in bioconversion industry, only a few natural fungus–methanogen co-cultures have been isolated and characterized. In this study we identified three co-cultures of Piromyces with Methanobrevibacter ruminantium from the rumen of yaks grazing on the Qinghai Tibetan Plateau. The representative co-culture, namely (Piromyces + M. ruminantium) Yak-G18, showed remarkable polysaccharide hydrolase production, especially xylanase. Consequently, it was able to degrade various lignocellulose substrates with a biodegrading capability superior to most previously identified fungus or fungus–methanogen co-culture isolates. End-product profiling analysis validated the beneficial metabolic impact of associated methanogen on fungus as revealed by high-yield production of methane and acetate and sustained growth on lignocellulose. Together, our data demonstrated a great potential of (Piromyces + M. ruminantium) Yak-G18 co-culture for use in industrial bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass.
CITATION STYLE
Wei, Y. Q., Yang, H. J., Long, R. J., Wang, Z. Y., Cao, B. B., Ren, Q. C., & Wu, T. T. (2017). Characterization of natural co-cultures of Piromyces with Methanobrevibacter ruminantium from yaks grazing on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau: a microbial consortium with high potential in plant biomass degradation. AMB Express, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13568-017-0459-1
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