Miia Mäkelä says “Filamentous fungi are the main plant biomass converting microorganisms in nature. They also have a huge impact on society due to their instrumental role in the development of the resource wise, sustainable economy since fungi and their enzymes and metabolites are prominent in several different fields of biotechnology.

Plant biomass conversion process by fungi includes four key factors: extracellular enzymatic degradation, uptake and intracellular catabolism of the resulting sugars, and its regulatory system. In contrast to extensive studies in the other three aspects, sugar transport has been barely touched, largely due to previous technical limitations.

MYCOFACT aims to not only fill this gap by classifying the influence of sugar transport on plant biomass conversion in filamentous fungi, but also provide a novel approach to improve plant biomass using fungal cell factories through combined manipulation of sugar transport and regulatory systems.”