Agaricus bisporus is a litter degrading basidiomycete commonly found in humic-rich environments. It is used as model organism and cultivated in large scale for food industry. Due to its ecological niche it produces a variety of enzymes for detoxification and degradation of humified plant litter. One of these, pyranose dehydrogenase, is thought to play a role in detoxification and lignocellulose degradation. It is a member of the glucose-methanol-choline family of flavin-dependent enzymes and oxidizes a wide range of sugars with concomitant reduction of electron acceptors like quinones. In this work, transcription of pdh in A. bisporus was investigated with real-time PCR revealing influence of the carbon source on pdh expression levels. The gene was isolated and heterologously expressed in Pichia pastoris. Characterization of the recombinant enzyme showed a higher affinity towards disaccharides compared to other tested pyranose dehydrogenases from related Agariceae. Homology modeling and sequence alignments indicated that two loops of high sequence variability at substrate access site could play an important role in modulating these substrate specificities. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.