Optimization of a blueprint for in vitro glycolysis by metabolic real-time analysis.

Recruiting complex metabolic reaction networks for chemical synthesis has attracted considerable attention but frequently requires optimization of network composition and dynamics to reach sufficient productivity. As a design framework to predict optimal levels for all enzymes in the network is currently not available, state-of-the-art pathway optimization relies on high-throughput phenotype screening. We present here the development and application of a new in vitro real-time analysis method for the comprehensive investigation and rational programming of enzyme networks for synthetic tasks. We used this first to rationally and rapidly derive an optimal blueprint for the production of the fine chemical building block dihydroxyacetone phosphate (DHAP) via Escherichia coli's highly evolved glycolysis. Second, the method guided the three-step genetic implementation of the blueprint, yielding a synthetic operon with the predicted 2.5-fold-increased glycolytic flux toward DHAP. The new analytical setup drastically accelerates rational optimization of synthetic multienzyme networks.

Exploiting cell-free systems: Implementation and debugging of a system of biotransformations.

The orchestration of a multitude of enzyme catalysts allows cells to carry out complex and thermodynamically unfavorable chemical conversions. In an effort to recruit these advantages for in vitro biotransformations, we have assembled a 10-step catalytic system-a system of biotransformations (SBT)-for the synthesis of unnatural monosaccharides based on the versatile building block dihydroxyacetone phosphate (DHAP). To facilitate the assembly of such a network, we have insulated a production pathway from Escherichia coli's central carbon metabolism. This pathway consists of the endogenous glycolysis without triose-phosphate isomerase to enable accumulation of DHAP and was completed with lactate dehydrogenase to regenerate NAD(+). It could be readily extended for the synthesis of unnatural sugar molecules, such as the unnatural monosaccharide phosphate 5,6,7-trideoxy-D-threo-heptulose-1-phosphate from DHAP and butanal. Insulation required in particular inactivation of the amn gene encoding the AMP nucleosidase, which otherwise led to glucose-independent DHAP production from adenosine phosphates. The work demonstrates that a sufficiently insulated in vitro multi-step enzymatic system can be readily assembled from central carbon metabolism pathways.

Chemical and enzymatic routes to dihydroxyacetone phosphate.

Stereoselective carbon-carbon bond formation with aldolases has become an indispensable tool in preparative synthetic chemistry. In particular, the dihydroxyacetone phosphate (DHAP)-dependent aldolases are attractive because four different types are available that allow access to a complete set of diastereomers of vicinal diols from achiral aldehyde acceptors and the DHAP donor substrate. While the substrate specificity for the acceptor is rather relaxed, these enzymes show only very limited tolerance for substituting the donor. Therefore, access to DHAP is instrumental for the preparative exploitation of these enzymes, and several routes for its synthesis have become available. DHAP is unstable, so chemical synthetic routes have concentrated on producing a storable precursor that can easily be converted to DHAP immediately before its use. Enzymatic routes have concentrated on integrating the DHAP formation with upstream or downstream catalytic steps, leading to multi-enzyme arrangements with up to seven enzymes operating simultaneously. While the various chemical routes suffer from either low yields, complicated work-up, or toxic reagents or catalysts, the enzymatic routes suffer from complex product mixtures and the need to assemble multiple enzymes into one reaction scheme. Both types of routes will require further improvement to serve as a basis for a scalable route to DHAP.

Selection of quiescent Escherichia coli with high metabolic activity.

Sustained metabolic activity in non-growing, quiescent cells can increase the operational life-span of bio-processes and improve process economics by decoupling production from cell growth. Because of the ill-defined molecular nature of this phenotype, we developed selection protocols for the evolution of quiescent Escherichia coli mutants that exhibit high metabolic activity in ammonium starvation-induced stationary phase. The best enrichment procedures were continuously or discontinuously fed ammonium-limited chemostat cultures with a very low dilution rate of 0.03 h(-1). After 40 generations of selection, improved mutants with up to doubled catabolic rates in stationary phase were isolated. The metabolically most active clones were identified by screening for high specific glucose uptake rates during ammonium starvation-induced stationary phase in deep-well microtiter plates.

Metabolic engineering of a phosphoketolase pathway for pentose catabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Low ethanol yields on xylose hamper economically viable ethanol production from hemicellulose-rich plant material with Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A major obstacle is the limited capacity of yeast for anaerobic reoxidation of NADH. Net reoxidation of NADH could potentially be achieved by channeling carbon fluxes through a recombinant phosphoketolase pathway. By heterologous expression of phosphotransacetylase and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase in combination with the native phosphoketolase, we installed a functional phosphoketolase pathway in the xylose-fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain TMB3001c. Consequently the ethanol yield was increased by 25% because less of the by-product xylitol was formed. The flux through the recombinant phosphoketolase pathway was about 30% of the optimum flux that would be required to completely eliminate xylitol and glycerol accumulation. Further overexpression of phosphoketolase, however, increased acetate accumulation and reduced the fermentation rate. By combining the phosphoketolase pathway with the ald6 mutation, which reduced acetate formation, a strain with an ethanol yield 20% higher and a xylose fermentation rate 40% higher than those of its parent was engineered.