Efficient bioethanol production from xylose by recombinant saccharomyces cerevisiae requires high activity of xylose reductase and moderate xylulokinase activity.

We varied the promoter strength of xylose reductase (XR) gene and the copy number of xylulokinase (XK) gene to determine how XR and XK activities affect the xylose-fermenting abilities of recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae expressing xylitol dehydrogenase (XDH). The most enhanced ethanol yield and lowered xylitol yield occurred in strain I-PGK/AUR, which has high activity of both XR and XDH and moderate XK activity.