Isolation of an Escherichia coli K4 kfoC mutant over-producing capsular chondroitin

Microbial Cell Factories

Research

Mario De Rosa¹  Chiara Schiraldi¹  Odile F Restaino¹  Donatella Cimini¹  Maurilio De Felice²  Anna Zanfardino²  Mario Varcamonti²  Eugenio Notomista² 

[1] Department of Experimental Medicine, Second University of Naples, Italy;Department of Structural and Functional Biology, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy;

关键词: Chondroitin Sulphate;    Soya Peptone;    Chondroitin Sulphate Chain;    Guanidine Moiety;    MNNG Treatment;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2859-9-34

 received in 2010-03-19, accepted in 2010-05-17,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundChondroitin sulphate is a complex polysaccharide having important structural and protective functions in animal tissues. Extracted from animals, this compound is used as a human anti-inflammatory drug. Among bacteria, Escherichia coli K4 produces a capsule containing a non-sulphate chondroitin and its development may provide an efficient and cheap fermentative production of the polysaccharide.ResultsA random N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine mutagenesis was performed on E. coli K4 to isolate mutants showing an increased production of chondroitin. Several mutants were isolated, one of which, here named VZ15, produced about 80% more chondroitin than the wild type E. coli. We found that the mutant has a missense mutation in the codon 313 of kfoC, the gene encoding chondroitin polymerase (K4CP), with a change from arginine to glutamine. A docking analysis to explain the increased productivity of the K4CP enzyme is presented.ConclusionThe enhanced chondroitin production by the E. coli K4 mutant reported here shows the validity of the strain improvement strategy for more cost-friendly fermentative processes in the production of this pharmaceutically important but so-far expensive polysaccharide.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Zanfardino et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.