Data on microbial production of xylitol from high formate organosolv C5 fraction

These data files contain data concerning strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia kudriavzevii modified to produce xylitol from xylose, with or without additional expression of a formate dehydrogenase gene to oxidize the formic acid. The files contain data from preliminary experiments which helped to define the conditions for later experiments in bioreactor cultures (file names include the word "flasks"), as well as data from both batch and fed-batch bioreactor cultures. Bioreactor data is published in a corresponding journal article and all data included in the publication is included in this open data. However, data from related strains is also included in the open data files, where available, even though this data is not mentioned in the journal article. Data is provided for cultures grown in medium with yeast extract, peptone, glucose and xylose, in addition to the medium with formate-acetate organosolve C5 fraction. The C5 fraction generated from formic and acetic acid organosolv processes provides a good source of xylose for xylitol production, but the high formic acid content is particularly challenging for microbial processes. By expressing both xylose reductase and formate dehydrogenase genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae or Pichia kudriavzevii, the strains tolerated C5 fraction containing up to 65 g L-1 formic acid and produced 53 to 112 g L-1 xylitol in fed batch culture. The concentration of xylose in the feed needed to be >200 g L-1 in order to achieve high (> 100 g L-1) xylitol concentrations. S. cerevisiae H4031 produced more xylitol in the C5 fraction than P. kudriavzevii H4496, although H4496 was more productive when provided pure xylose.