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    An Aldolase-Based New Pathway for Bioconversion of Formaldehyde and Ethanol into 1,3-Propanediol in Escherichia coli
    Formaldehyde (HCHO) is a reactive one-carbon compound that is interesting for biosynthesis. The assimilation of HCHO depends on the catalysis of aldolase. Here, we present a novel synthetic pathway in E. coli to convert HCHO and ethanol into 1,3-propanediol (PDO) using a deoxyribose-5-phosphate aldolase (DERA). DERA condenses HCHO and acetaldehyde to form 3-hydroxypropionaldehyde, the direct precursor of PDO formation. This new pathway opens up the possibility to synthesize an appealing C3 compound from a C1 compound and a C2 compound without carbon loss in contrast to all the other known PDO synthetic pathways where typically 30-50% of the carbons are lost as CO2 and other byproducts. The pathway is successfully demonstrated by elaborating three metabolic modules. First, DERA from Thermotoga maritima was found to be efficient for the aldol condensation and PDO production module. For the module of acetaldehyde supply from ethanol, an alcohol dehydrogenase from Hansenula polymorpha was selected. For the HCHO supply module, the control of HCHO concentration and its utilization were shown to be important for achieving the assimilation of HCHO in recombinant E. coli cells. By deleting the gene frmA for endogenous conversion of HCHO to formate and controlling HCHO at a level of about 0.6 mM, the concentration and yield of PDO were increased from initially 5.67 mM (0.43 g/L) and 0.057 mol/mol to 17.35 mM (1.32 g/L) and 0.096 mol/mol in bioconversion of ethanol and HCHO with resting E. coli cells. Further engineering of DERA and the HCHO supply module is necessary to realize the potential of this promising metabolic pathway.
    Publicationtype: Journal Article
    Scopus© Citations 17  53
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    An Aldolase-Catalyzed New Metabolic Pathway for the Assimilation of Formaldehyde and Methanol to Synthesize 2-Keto-4-hydroxybutyrate and 1,3-Propanediol in Escherichia coli
    Formaldehyde (HCHO) is an important intermediate in the metabolism of one-carbon (C1) compounds such as methanol, formate, and methane. The ribulose monophosphate (RuMP) pathway is the most-studied HCHO assimilation route and the 3-hexulose-6-phosphate synthase (Hps) plays an important role for HCHO fixation. In this study, we proposed and selected a pyruvate-dependent aldolase to channel HCHO into 2-keto-4-hydroxybutyrate as an important intermediate for biosynthesis. By combining this reaction with three further enzymes we demonstrated a pyruvate-based C1 metabolic pathway for biosynthesis of the appealing compound 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PDO). This novel pathway is first confirmed in vitro using HCHO and pyruvate as substrates. It is then demonstrated in vivo in E. coli for 1,3-PDO production from HCHO and methanol with glucose as a cosubstrate. This de novo pathway has several decisive advantages over the known metabolic pathways for 1,3-PDO: (1) C1 carbon is directly channeled into a precursor of 1,3-PDO; (2) the use of pyruvate as an acceptor of HCHO is glycerol-independent, circumventing thus the need of coenzyme B12 as cofactor for glycerol dehydration; (3) the pathway is much shorter and more simple than the recently proposed l-homoserine-dependent pathway, thus avoiding complicated regulations involving precursors for essential amino acids. In addition to proof-of-concept we further improved the host strain by deleting a gene (frmA) responsible for the conversion of HCHO to formate, thereby increasing the production of 1,3-PDO from 298.3 ± 11.4 mg/L to 508.3 ± 9.1 mg/L and from 3.8 mg/L to 32.7 ± 0.8 mg/L with HCHO and methanol as cosubstrate of glucose fermentation, respectively. This work is the first study demonstrating a genetically engineered E. coli that can directly use HCHO or methanol for the synthesis of 2-keto-4-hydroxybutyrate and its further conversion to 1,3-PDO.
    Publicationtype: Journal Article
      134
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    Characterization and Engineering of a Clostridium Glycine Riboswitch and Its Use to Control a Novel Metabolic Pathway for 5-Aminolevulinic Acid Production in Escherichia coli
    A riboswitch, a regulatory RNA that controls gene expression by specifically binding a ligand, is an attractive genetic element for the control of conditional gene expression and metabolic pathways. In this study, we identified a glycine riboswitch located in the 5′-untranslated regions of a glycine:proton symporter gene in Clostridium pasteurianum. The glycine riboswitch is shown to contain two tandem aptamers and to function as an activator of expression of genes fused to its expression platform. Results of singlet aptamer experiments indicated that aptamer-2 has a much higher impact on regulating gene expression than aptamer-1. Further, we successfully obtained synthetic glycine-OFF riboswitches using a dual selection approach, and one of them repressed gene expression up to 10.2-fold with an improved dynamic range. The specific glycine-OFF riboswitch can function as an independent repressor in the presence of glycine, and its repression mechanism is inferred from predicted secondary structure. The selected glycine-OFF riboswitch was used to dynamically control the biosynthesis of 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) in Escherichia coli with an unnatural 5-ALA synthetic pathway, in which glycine plays a key role. It is demonstrated that the use of a synthetic Clostridium glycine-OFF riboswitch can lead to a significant increase (11%) of 5-ALA in E. coli harboring an unnatural biosynthetic pathway.
    Publicationtype: Journal Article
      79
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    An Unnatural Pathway for Efficient 5-Aminolevulinic Acid Biosynthesis with Glycine from Glyoxylate Based on Retrobiosynthetic Design
    The design of novel metabolic pathways for efficient biosynthesis of natural products has received much interest, but often lacks systematic approach and chemistry-based guideline. Here we propose carbon skeleton reconstruction based on retrobiosynthetic design as a new approach and chemistry-guideline to solve the problem of properly matching precursors, one of the key issues for efficient biosynthesis. It is demonstrated for the development of an unnatural pathway for efficient biosynthesis of 5-aminolevulinic acid. The new pathway has several advantages compared to the existing natural ones such as high carbon utilization efficiency and orthogonality. It is particularly useful for overcoming the problem of glycine supply. The unnatural pathway is verified in vitro in an enzymatic cascade and in vivo in recombinant E. coli with an exogenous glyoxylate transaminase as a key enzyme.
    Publicationtype: Journal Article
      152