Production of shikimic acid from Escherichia coli through chemically inducible chromosomal evolution and cofactor metabolic engineering

Microbial Cell Factories

Research

Jian Huang¹  Jian-Zhong Liu¹  Yuan-Yuan Zhang¹  Yan-Yan Cui¹  Chen Ling² 

[1] Biotechnology Research Center and Biomedical Center, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, 510275, Guangzhou, PR, China;School of Materials Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, 510641, Guangzhou, PR, China;

关键词: Shikimic acid;    Escherichia coli;    Chemically induced chromosomal evolution;    NADPH;    Transhydrogenase;    NAD kinase;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2859-13-21

 received in 2013-11-20, accepted in 2014-02-07,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundShikimic acid (SA) produced from the seeds of Chinese star anise (Illicium verum) is a key intermediate for the synthesis of neuraminidase inhibitors such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu®), an anti-influenza drug. However, plants cannot deliver a stable supply of SA. To avoid the resulting shortages and price fluctuations, a stable source of affordable SA is required. Although recent achievements in metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli strains have significantly increased SA productivity, commonly-used plasmid-based expression systems are prone to genetic instability and require constant selective pressure to ensure plasmid maintenance. Cofactors also play an important role in the biosynthesis of different fermentation products. In this study, we first constructed an E. coli SA production strain that carries no plasmid or antibiotic marker. We then investigated the effect of endogenous NADPH availability on SA production.ResultsThe pps and csrB genes were first overexpressed by replacing their native promoter and integrating an additional copy of the genes in a double gene knockout (aroK and aroL) of E. coli. The aroGfbr, aroB, aroE and tktA gene cluster was integrated into the above E. coli chromosome by direct transformation. The gene copy number was then evolved to the desired value by triclosan induction. The resulting strain, E. coli SA110, produced 8.9-fold more SA than did the parental strain E. coli (ΔaroK ΔaroL). Following qRT-PCR analysis, another copy of the tktA gene under the control of the 5Ptac promoter was inserted into the chromosome of E. coli SA110 to obtain the more productive strain E. coli SA110. Next, the NADPH availability was increased by overexpressing the pntAB or nadK genes, which further enhanced SA production. The final strain, E. coli SA116, produced 3.12 g/L of SA with a yield on glucose substrate of 0.33 mol/mol.ConclusionAn SA-producing E. coli strain that carries neither a plasmid nor an antibiotic marker was constructed by triclosan-induced chromosomal evolution. We present the first demonstration that increasing NADPH availability by overexpressing the pntAB or nadK genes significantly enhances SA production.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Cui et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. 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 credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.