Laboratory evolution reveals general and specific tolerance mechanisms for commodity chemicals.

Although strain tolerance to high product concentrations is a barrier to the economically viable biomanufacturing of industrial chemicals, chemical tolerance mechanisms are often unknown. To reveal tolerance mechanisms, an automated platform was utilized to evolve Escherichia coli to grow optimally in the presence of 11 industrial chemicals (1,2-propanediol, 2,3-butanediol, glutarate, adipate, putrescine, hexamethylenediamine, butanol, isobutyrate, coumarate, octanoate, hexanoate), reaching tolerance at concentrations 60%-400% higher than initial toxic levels. Sequencing genomes of 223 isolates from 89 populations, reverse engineering, and cross-compound tolerance profiling were employed to uncover tolerance mechanisms. We show that: 1) cells are tolerized via frequent mutation of membrane transporters or cell wall-associated proteins (e.g., ProV, KgtP, SapB, NagA, NagC, MreB), transcription and translation machineries (e.g., RpoA, RpoB, RpoC, RpsA, RpsG, NusA, Rho), stress signaling proteins (e.g., RelA, SspA, SpoT, YobF), and for certain chemicals, regulators and enzymes in metabolism (e.g., MetJ, NadR, GudD, PurT); 2) osmotic stress plays a significant role in tolerance when chemical concentrations exceed a general threshold and mutated genes frequently overlap with those enabling chemical tolerance in membrane transporters and cell wall-associated proteins; 3) tolerization to a specific chemical generally improves tolerance to structurally similar compounds whereas a tradeoff can occur on dissimilar chemicals, and 4) using pre-tolerized starting isolates can hugely enhance the subsequent production of chemicals when a production pathway is inserted in many, but not all, evolved tolerized host strains, underpinning the need for evolving multiple parallel populations. Taken as a whole, this study provides a comprehensive genotype-phenotype map based on identified mutations and growth phenotypes for 223 chemical tolerant isolates.

Identification and Engineering of Transporters for Efficient Melatonin Production in Escherichia coli.

Transporter discovery and engineering play an important role in cell factory development. Decreasing the intracellular concentration of the product reduces product inhibition and/or toxicity. Lowering intracellular concentrations is especially beneficial for achieving a robust strain at high titers. However, the identification of transporters for xenobiotic chemicals in the host strain is challenging. Here we present a high-throughput workflow to discover Escherichia coli transporters responsible for the efflux of the inhibitory xenobiotic compound melatonin. We took advantage of the Keio collection and screened about 400 transporter knockouts in the presence of a high concentration of melatonin. We found five transporters that when knocked out showed decreased tolerance to melatonin, indicating they are exporters of melatonin. We overexpressed these five genes individually in the production strain and found that one of them, yhjV, encoding a transporter with unknown substrates, resulted in a 27% titer increase in cultivation mimicking fed-batch fermentation. This study demonstrates how microbial cell factories can be improved through transporter identification and engineering. Further, these results lay the foundation for the scale-up of melatonin production in E. coli.

A Novel Efficient L-Lysine Exporter Identified by Functional Metagenomics.

Lack of active export system often limits the industrial bio-based production processes accumulating the intracellular product and hence complexing the purification steps. L-lysine, an essential amino acid, is produced biologically in quantities exceeding two million tons per year; yet, L-lysine production is challenged by efficient export system at high titers during fermentation. To address this issue, new exporter candidates for efficient efflux of L-lysine are needed. Using metagenomic functional selection, we identified 58 genes encoded on 28 unique metagenomic fragments from cow gut microbiome library that improved L-lysine tolerance. These genes include a novel L-lysine transporter, belonging to a previously uncharacterized EamA superfamily, which is further in vivo characterized as L-lysine exporter using Xenopus oocyte expression system as well as Escherichia coli host. This novel exporter improved L-lysine tolerance in E. coli by 40% and enhanced yield, titer, and the specific production of L-lysine in an industrial Corynebacterium glutamicum strain by 7.8%, 9.5%, and 12%, respectively. Our approach allows the sequence-independent discovery of novel exporters and can be deployed to increase titers and productivity of toxicity-limited bioprocesses.

Escherichia coli modular coculture system for resveratrol glucosides production.

In bio-based fermentation, the overall bioprocess efficiency is significantly affected by the metabolic burden associated with the expression of complete biosynthetic pathway as well as precursor and cofactor generating enzymes into a single microbial cell. To attenuate such burden by compartmentalizing the enzyme expression, recently synthetic biologists have used coculture or poly-culture techniques for biomolecules synthesis. In this paper, coculture system of two metabolically engineered Escherichia coli populations were employed which comprises upstream module expressing two enzymes converting para-coumaric acid into resveratrol and the downstream module expressing glucosyltransferase to convert the resveratrol into its glucosidated forms; polydatin and resveratroloside. Upon optimization of the initial inoculum ratio of two E. coli populations, 92 mg resveratrol glucosides/L (236 µM) was produced i.e. achieving 84% bioconversion from 280 µM of p-coumaric acid in 60 h by 3 L fed batch fermentor. This is the report of applying coculture system to produce resveratrol glucosides by expressing the aglycone formation pathway and sugar dependent pathway into two different cells.

Microbial production of astilbin, a bioactive rhamnosylated flavanonol, from taxifolin.

Flavonoids are plant-based polyphenolic biomolecules with a wide range of biological activities. Glycosylated flavonoids have drawn special attention in the industries as it improves solubility, stability, and bioactivity. Herein, we report the production of astilbin (ATN) from taxifolin (TFN) in genetically-engineered Escherichia coli BL21(DE3). The exogenously supplied TFN was converted to ATN by 3-O-rhamnosylation utilizing the endogeneous TDP-L-rhamnose in presence of UDP-glycosyltransferase (ArGT3, Gene Bank accession number: At1g30530) from Arabidopsis thaliana. Upon improving the intracellular TDP-L-rhamnose pool by knocking out the chromosomal glucose phosphate isomerase (pgi) and D-glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (zwf) deletion along with the overexpression of rhamnose biosynthetic pathway increases the biotransformation product, ATN with total conversion of ~49.5 ± 1.67% from 100 µM of taxifolin. In addition, the cytotoxic effect of taxifolin-3-O-rhamnoside on PANC-1 and A-549 cancer cell lines was assessed for establishing ATN as potent antitumor compound.

deFUME: Dynamic exploration of functional metagenomic sequencing data.

BACKGROUND: Functional metagenomic selections represent a powerful technique that is widely applied for identification of novel genes from complex metagenomic sources. However, whereas hundreds to thousands of clones can be easily generated and sequenced over a few days of experiments, analyzing the data is time consuming and constitutes a major bottleneck for experimental researchers in the field. FINDINGS: Here we present the deFUME web server, an easy-to-use web-based interface for processing, annotation and visualization of functional metagenomics sequencing data, tailored to meet the requirements of non-bioinformaticians. The web-server integrates multiple analysis steps into one single workflow: read assembly, open reading frame prediction, and annotation with BLAST, InterPro and GO classifiers. Analysis results are visualized in an online dynamic web-interface. CONCLUSION: The deFUME webserver provides a fast track from raw sequence to a comprehensive visual data overview that facilitates effortless inspection of gene function, clustering and distribution. The webserver is available at cbs.dtu.dk/services/deFUME/and the source code is distributed at github.com/EvdH0/deFUME.

Assembly of a novel biosynthetic pathway for production of the plant flavonoid fisetin in Escherichia coli.

Plant secondary metabolites are an underutilized pool of bioactive molecules for applications in the food, pharma and nutritional industries. One such molecule is fisetin, which is present in many fruits and vegetables and has several potential health benefits, including anti-cancer, anti-viral and anti-aging activity. Moreover, fisetin has recently been shown to prevent Alzheimer's disease in mice and to prevent complications associated with diabetes type I. Thus far the biosynthetic pathway of fisetin in plants remains elusive. Here, we present the heterologous assembly of a novel fisetin pathway in Escherichia coli. We propose a novel biosynthetic pathway from the amino acid, tyrosine, utilizing nine heterologous enzymes. The pathway proceeds via the synthesis of two flavanones never produced in microorganisms before--garbanzol and resokaempferol. We show for the first time a functional biosynthetic pathway and establish E. coli as a microbial platform strain for the production of fisetin and related flavonols.

Fungal cytochrome P450 monooxygenases of Fusarium oxysporum for the synthesis of ω-hydroxy fatty acids in engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

BACKGROUND: Omega hydroxy fatty acids (ω-OHFAs) are multifunctional compounds that act as the basis for the production of various industrial products with broad commercial and pharmaceutical implications. However, the terminal oxygenation of saturated or unsaturated fatty acids for the synthesis of ω-OHFAs is intricate to accomplish through chemocatalysis, due to the selectivity and controlled reactivity in C-H oxygenation reactions. Cytochrome P450, the ubiquitous enzyme is capable of catalyzing the selective terminal omega hydroxylation naturally in biological kingdom. RESULTS: To gain a deep insight on the biochemical role of fungal P450s towards the production of omega hydroxy fatty acids, two cytochrome P450 monooxygenases from Fusarium oxysporum (FoCYP), FoCYP539A7 and FoCYP655C2; were identified, cloned, and heterologously expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. For the efficient production of ω-OHFAs, the S. cerevisiae was engineered to disrupt the acyl-CoA oxidase enzyme and the ß-oxidation pathway inactivated (ΔPox1) S. cerevisiae mutant was generated. To elucidate the significance of the interaction of redox mechanism, FoCYPs were reconstituted with the heterologous and homologous reductase systems--S. cerevisiae CPR (ScCPR) and F. oxysporum CPR (FoCPR). To further improve the yield, the effect of pH was analyzed and the homologous FoCYP-FoCPR system efficiently hydroxylated caprylic acid, capric acid and lauric acid into their respective ω-hydroxy fatty acids with 56%, 79% and 67% conversion. Furthermore, based on computational simulations, we identified the key residues (Asn106 of FoCYP539A7 and Arg235 of FoCYP655C2) responsible for the recognition of fatty acids and demonstrated the structural insights of the active site of FoCYPs. CONCLUSION: Fungal CYP monooxygenases, FoCYP539A7 and FoCYP655C2 with its homologous redox partner, FoCPR constitutes a promising catalyst due to its high regio- and stereo-selectivity in the hydroxylation of fatty acids and in the substantial production of industrially valuable ω-hydroxy fatty acids.

Novel biosensors based on flavonoid-responsive transcriptional regulators introduced into Escherichia coli.

This study describes the construction of two flavonoid biosensors, which can be applied for metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli strains. The biosensors are based on transcriptional regulators combined with autofluorescent proteins. The transcriptional activator FdeR from Herbaspirillum seropedicae SmR1 responds to naringenin, while the repressor QdoR from Bacillus subtilis is inactivated by quercetin and kaempferol. Both biosensors showed over a 7-fold increase of the fluorescent signal after addition of their specific effectors, and a linear correlation between the fluorescence intensity and externally added flavonoid concentration. The QdoR-biosensor was successfully applied for detection of kaempferol production in vivo at the single cell level by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. Furthermore, the amount of kaempferol produced highly correlated with the specific fluorescence of E. coli cells containing a flavonol synthase from Arabidopsis thaliana (fls1). We expect the designed biosensors to be applied for isolation of genes involved in flavonoid biosynthetic pathways.

Regiospecific modifications of naringenin for astragalin production in Escherichia coli.

We report the production of astragalin (AST) from regiospecific modifications of naringenin (NRN) in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3). The exogenously supplied NRN was converted into dihydrokaempferol (DHK) and then kaempferol (KMF) in the presence of flavanone-3-hydroxylase (f3h) and flavonone synthase (fls1) from Arabidopsis thaliana, respectively. KMF was further modified to produce AST by 3-O-glucosylation utilizing the endogeneous UDP-glucose in presence of UGT78K1 from Glycine max. To increase the intracellular UDP-glucose concentration by channeling the carbon flux toward UDP-glucose at the branch point of glucose-6-phosphate (G6P), the chromosomal glucose phosphate isomerase (pgi) and D-glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (zwf) were knocked-out in E. coli BL21(DE3). The two enzymes directly involved in the synthesis of UDP-glucose from G6P, phosphoglucomutase (nfa44530) from Nocardia farcinia and glucose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase (galU) from E. coli K12 were overexpressed, which successfully diverted the carbon flow from glycolysis to the synthesis of UDP-glucose. Furthermore, to prevent the dissociation of UDP-glucose into UDP and glucose, the UDP-glucose hydrolase (ushA) was deleted. The E. coli ΔpgiΔzwfΔushA mutant harboring the UDP-glucose biosynthetic pathway and the aforementioned genes for the regiospecific glucosylation produced 109.3 mg/L (244 µM) of AST representing 48.8% conversion from 500 µM of NRN in 60 h without any supplementation of extracellular UDP-glucose.

Production of 3-O-xylosyl quercetin in Escherichia coli.

Quercetin, a flavonol aglycone, is one of the most abundant flavonoids with high medicinal value. The bioavailability and pharmacokinetic properties of quercetin are influenced by the type of sugars attached to the molecule. To efficiently diversify the therapeutic uses of quercetin, Escherichia coli was harnessed as a production factory by the installation of various plant and bacterial UDP-xylose sugar biosynthetic genes. The genes encoding for the UDP-xylose pathway enzymes phosphoglucomutase (nfa44530), glucose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase (galU), UDP-glucose dehydrogenase (calS8), and UDP-glucuronic acid decarboxylase (calS9) were overexpressed in E. coli BL21 (DE3) along with a glycosyltransferase (arGt-3) from Arabidopsis thaliana. Furthermore, E. coli BL21(DE3)/∆pgi, E. coli BL21(DE3)/∆zwf, E. coli BL21(DE3)/∆pgi∆zwf, and E. coli BL21(DE3)/∆pgi∆zwf∆ushA mutants carrying the aforementioned UDP-xylose sugar biosynthetic genes and glycosyltransferase and the galU-integrated E. coli BL21(DE3)/∆pgi host harboring only calS8, calS9, and arGt-3 were constructed to enhance whole-cell bioconversion of exogeneously supplied quercetin into 3-O-xylosyl quercetin. Here, we report the highest production of 3-O-xylosyl quercetin with E. coli BL21 (DE3)/∆pgi∆zwf∆ushA carrying UDP-xylose sugar biosynthetic genes and glycosyltransferase. The maximum concentration of 3-O-xylosyl quercetin achieved was 23.78 mg/L (54.75 µM), representing 54.75 % bioconversion, which was an ~4.8-fold higher bioconversion than that shown by E. coli BL21 (DE3) with the same set of genes when the reaction was carried out in 5-mL culture tubes with 100 µM quercetin under optimized conditions. Bioconversion was further improved by 98 % when the reaction was scaled up in a 3-L fermentor at 36 h.

Genome-based cryptic gene discovery and functional identification of NRPS siderophore peptide in Streptomyces peucetius.

Identification of secondary metabolites produced by cryptic gene in bacteria may be difficult, but in the case of nonribosomal peptide (NRP)-type secondary metabolites, this study can be facilitated by bioinformatic analysis of the biosynthetic gene cluster and tandem mass spectrometry analysis. To illustrate this concept, we used mass spectrometry-guided bioinformatic analysis of genomic sequences to identify an NRP-type secondary metabolite from Streptomyces peucetius ATCC 27952. Five putative NRPS biosynthetic gene clusters were identified in the S. peucetius genome by DNA sequence analysis. Of these, the sp970 gene cluster encoded a complete NRPS domain structure, viz., C-A-T-C-A-T-E-C-A-T-C-A-T-C domains. Tandem mass spectrometry revealed that the functional siderophore peptide produced by this cluster had a molecular weight of 644.4 Da. Further analysis demonstrated that the siderophore peptide has a cyclic structure and an amino acid composition of AchfOrn-Arg-hOrn-hfOrn. The discovery of functional cryptic genes by analysis of the secretome, especially of NRP-type secondary metabolites, using mass spectrometry together with genome mining may contribute significantly to the development of pharmaceuticals such as hybrid antibiotics.

Production of 7-O-methyl aromadendrin, a medicinally valuable flavonoid, in Escherichia coli.

7-O-Methyl aromadendrin (7-OMA) is an aglycone moiety of one of the important flavonoid-glycosides found in several plants, such as Populus alba and Eucalyptus maculata, with various medicinal applications. To produce such valuable natural flavonoids in large quantity, an Escherichia coli cell factory has been developed to employ various plant biosynthetic pathways. Here, we report the generation of 7-OMA from its precursor, p-coumaric acid, in E. coli for the first time. Primarily, naringenin (NRN) (flavanone) synthesis was achieved by feeding p-coumaric acid and reconstructing the plant biosynthetic pathway by introducing the following structural genes: 4-coumarate-coenzyme A (CoA) ligase from Petroselinum crispum, chalcone synthase from Petunia hybrida, and chalcone isomerase from Medicago sativa. In order to increase the availability of malonyl-CoA, a critical precursor of 7-OMA, genes for the acyl-CoA carboxylase α and ß subunits (nfa9890 and nfa9940), biotin ligase (nfa9950), and acetyl-CoA synthetase (nfa3550) from Nocardia farcinica were also introduced. Thus, produced NRN was hydroxylated at position 3 by flavanone-3-hydroxylase from Arabidopsis thaliana, which was further methylated at position 7 to produce 7-OMA in the presence of 7-O-methyltransferase from Streptomyces avermitilis. Dihydrokaempferol (DHK) (aromadendrin) and sakuranetin (SKN) were produced as intermediate products. Overexpression of the genes for flavanone biosynthesis and modification pathways, along with malonyl-CoA overproduction in E. coli, produced 2.7 mg/liter (8.9 µM) 7-OMA upon supplementation with 500 µM p-coumaric acid in 24 h, whereas the strain expressing only the flavanone modification enzymes yielded 30 mg/liter (99.2 µM) 7-OMA from 500 µM NRN in 24 h.

Proteomic approach to enhance doxorubicin production in panK-integrated Streptomyces peucetius ATCC 27952.

Biosynthesis of polyketide compounds depends upon the starter and extender units of coenzyme A derivatives of carboxylic acids present in the host organism. To increase the coenzyme A (CoA) pool, pantothenate kinase (panK) gene from Escherichia coli was integrated into S. peucetius ATCC 27952 (panK-integrated strain, BG200), which resulted in increase in aglycone polyketide ε-rhodomycinone (RHO), but decrease in the desired product, i.e., doxorubicin (DXR). To reduce RHO accumulation by synthesizing daunorubicin (DNR) from RHO more efficiently, glycosyltransferase (dnrQS) was overexpressed (pIBR25::dnrQS in panK-integrated strain, BG201). However, DnrQS overexpression still resulted in less production of DXR compared with the parental strain. To understand the results in detail by investigating the proteome changes in the panK-integrated strain, two-dimensional (2D) gel electrophoresis was performed. Among the several proteins that are up- or downregulated in BG200, efflux protein DrrA was our main target of interest, because it is directly related to DXR/DNR production in S. peucetius. DXR transporter DrrAB was additionally introduced in BG200 to enhance secretion of toxic DXR. Compared with S. peucetius ATCC 27952, BG204 (pIBR25::drrAB in panK-integrated strain), produced two times higher amount of DXR, which is 9.4-fold higher than that of panK-integrated strain BG200. The results show that the proteomic approach is quite useful in host development of Streptomyces and understanding cell physiology for antibiotic production.

Identification and characterization of gerPI and gerPII involved in epoxidation and hydroxylation of dihydrochalcolactone in Streptomyces species KCTC 0041BP.

The macrolide antibiotics are biosynthesized by initial assembly of a macrolactone ring, followed by a series of post-polyketide (PKS) modifications. In general, the additional hydroxyl or epoxy groups are installed by cytochrome P450 enzymes, improving the bioactivity profile through structural diversification of natural products. The biosynthetic gene cluster for the 16-membered macrolide antibiotic dihydrochalcomycin (DHC) has been cloned from Streptomyces sp. KCTC 0041BP. Three cytochrome P450 genes are found in the DHC biosynthetic gene (ger) cluster. Two P450 enzymes were characterized from this cluster. Disruption of gerPI accumulated predominantly 12,13-de-epoxydihydrochalcomycin while disruption of gerPII accumulated 8-dehydroxy-12,13-de-epoxydihydrochalcomycin; DHC production was abolished in both cases. The results suggest that GerPII P450 catalyzes hydroxylation at the C(8) position followed by an epoxidation reaction catalyzed by GerPI P450 at the C(12)-C(13) position.

Limitations in doxorubicin production from Streptomyces peucetius.

Doxorubicin (DXR), produced by Streptomyces peucetius ATCC 27952, exhibits potent antitumor activity against various cancer cell lines. Considerable time has lapsed since the biosynthesis of DXR and its overproduction was first summarized. Based on biosynthetic studies and product analysis, various factors affecting its production by the parental strain, S. peucetius ATCC 27952, are reviewed to better circumvent any bottlenecks in DXR production, thereby providing ideas to genetically engineered industrial strains of S. peucetius.

Improvement in doxorubicin productivity by overexpression of regulatory genes in Streptomyces peucetius.

Biosynthesis of doxorubicin (DXR) is tightly regulated, limiting its production in Streptomyces peucetius cultures. The regulatory genes dnrN, dnrI, afsR, and metK1-sp from S. peucetius ATCC 27952 were cloned into the pIBR25 expression vector under the control of the strong ermE* promoter to enhance DXR production. The constructed expression plasmids, pNI25 (with dnrN-dnrI), pNIS25 (with dnrN-dnrI-metK1-sp), pNIR25 (with dnrN-dnrI-afsR), pRS25 (with afsR-metK1-sp) and pNIRS25 (with dnrN-dnrI-afsR-metK1-sp), were transformed into S. peucetius. The recombinant strains NI, NIS and NIR produced greater amounts of DXR than the parental strain with an increment of 1.2-fold by pNI25, 1.4-fold by pNIS25 and 4.3-fold by pNIR25, whereas pRS25 and pNIRS25 had no significant effect on DXR production. We also studied the transcriptional level of overexpressed regulatory genes and relative production of DXR, daunorubicin (DNR) and epsilon-rhodomycinone (RHO) in each recombinant strain.

Self-resistance mechanism in Streptomyces peucetius: overexpression of drrA, drrB and drrC for doxorubicin enhancement.

The resistance genes drrABC from Streptomyces peucetius ATCC 27952 were cloned into the pIBR25 expression vector under a strong ermE* promoter to enhance doxorubicin (DXR) production. The recombinant expression plasmids, pDrrAB25, pDrrC25 and pDrrABC25, were constructed to overexpress drrAB, drrC and drrABC, respectively, in S. peucetius ATCC 27952. The recombinant strains produced more DXR than the parental strain: a 2.2-fold increase with pDrrAB25, a 5.1-fold increase with pDrrC25, and a 2.4-fold increase with pDrrABC25. We also studied the relative ratios of doxorubicin, daunorubicin and epsilon-rhodomycinone produced in these recombinant strains.

Enhancement of doxorubicin production by expression of structural sugar biosynthesis and glycosyltransferase genes in Streptomyces peucetius.

To enhance doxorubicin (DXR) production, the structural sugar biosynthesis genes desIII and desIV from Streptomyces venezuelae ATCC 15439 and the glycosyltransferase pair dnrS/dnrQ from Streptomyces peucetius ATCC 27952 were cloned into the expression vector pIBR25, which contains a strong ermE promoter. The recombinant plasmids pDnrS25 and pDnrQS25 were constructed for overexpression of dnrS and the dnrS/dnrQ pair, whereas pDesSD25 and pDesQS25 were constructed to express desIII/desIV and dnrS/dnrQ-desIII/desIV, respectively. All of these recombinant plasmids were introduced into S. peucetius ATCC 27952. The recombinant strains produced more DXR than the S. peucetius parental strain: a 1.2-fold increase with pDnrS25, a 2.8-fold increase with pDnrQS25, a 2.6-fold increase with pDesSD25, and a 5.6-fold increase with pDesQS25. This study showed that DXR production was significantly enhanced by overexpression of potential biosynthetic sugar genes and glycosyltransferase.