Hypoxia is regulating enzymatic wood decomposition and intracellular carbohydrate metabolism in filamentous white rot fungus.

Background: Fungal decomposition of wood is considered as a strictly aerobic process. However, recent findings on wood-decaying fungi to produce ethanol from various lignocelluloses under oxygen-depleted conditions lead us to question this. We designed gene expression study of the white rot fungus (isolate FBCC0043) by adopting comparative transcriptomics and functional genomics on solid lignocellulose substrates under varying cultivation atmospheric conditions.