A Synthetic Pathway for the Production of Benzylsuccinate in Escherichia coli.

(R)-Benzylsuccinate is generated in anaerobic toluene degradation by the radical addition of toluene to fumarate and further degraded to benzoyl-CoA by a ß-oxidation pathway. Using metabolic modules for benzoate transport and activation to benzoyl-CoA and the enzymes of benzylsuccinate ß-oxidation, we established an artificial pathway for benzylsuccinate production in Escherichia coli, which is based on its degradation pathway running in reverse. Benzoate is supplied to the medium but needs to be converted to benzoyl-CoA by an uptake transporter and a benzoate-CoA ligase or CoA-transferase. In contrast, the second substrate succinate is endogenously produced from glucose under anaerobic conditions, and the constructed pathway includes a succinyl-CoA:benzylsuccinate CoA-transferase that activates it to the CoA-thioester. We present first evidence for the feasibility of this pathway and explore product yields under different growth conditions. Compared to aerobic cultures, the product yield increased more than 1000-fold in anaerobic glucose-fermenting cultures and showed further improvement under fumarate-respiring conditions. An important bottleneck to overcome appears to be product excretion, based on much higher recorded intracellular concentrations of benzylsuccinate, compared to those excreted. While no export system is known for benzylsuccinate, we observed an increased product yield after adding an unspecific mechanosensitive channel to the constructed pathway.

Energy Conservation Associated with Ethanol Formation from H2 and CO2 in Clostridium autoethanogenum Involving Electron Bifurcation.

UNLABELLED: Most acetogens can reduce CO2 with H2 to acetic acid via the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway, in which the ATP required for formate activation is regenerated in the acetate kinase reaction. However, a few acetogens, such as Clostridium autoethanogenum, Clostridium ljungdahlii, and Clostridium ragsdalei, also form large amounts of ethanol from CO2 and H2. How these anaerobes with a growth pH optimum near 5 conserve energy has remained elusive. We investigated this question by determining the specific activities and cofactor specificities of all relevant oxidoreductases in cell extracts of H2/CO2-grown C. autoethanogenum. The activity studies were backed up by transcriptional and mutational analyses. Most notably, despite the presence of six hydrogenase systems of various types encoded in the genome, the cells appear to contain only one active hydrogenase. The active [FeFe]-hydrogenase is electron bifurcating, with ferredoxin and NADP as the two electron acceptors. Consistently, most of the other active oxidoreductases rely on either reduced ferredoxin and/or NADPH as the electron donor. An exception is ethanol dehydrogenase, which was found to be NAD specific. Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase activity could only be demonstrated with artificial electron donors. Key to the understanding of this energy metabolism is the presence of membrane-associated reduced ferredoxin:NAD(+) oxidoreductase (Rnf), of electron-bifurcating and ferredoxin-dependent transhydrogenase (Nfn), and of acetaldehyde:ferredoxin oxidoreductase, which is present with very high specific activities in H2/CO2-grown cells. Based on these findings and on thermodynamic considerations, we propose metabolic schemes that allow, depending on the H2 partial pressure, the chemiosmotic synthesis of 0.14 to 1.5 mol ATP per mol ethanol synthesized from CO2 and H2. IMPORTANCE: Ethanol formation from syngas (H2, CO, and CO2) and from H2 and CO2 that is catalyzed by bacteria is presently a much-discussed process for sustainable production of biofuels. Although the process is already in use, its biochemistry is only incompletely understood. The most pertinent question is how the bacteria conserve energy for growth during ethanol formation from H2 and CO2, considering that acetyl coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA), is an intermediate. Can reduction of the activated acetic acid to ethanol with H2 be coupled with the phosphorylation of ADP? Evidence is presented that this is indeed possible, via both substrate-level phosphorylation and electron transport phosphorylation. In the case of substrate-level phosphorylation, acetyl-CoA reduction to ethanol proceeds via free acetic acid involving acetaldehyde:ferredoxin oxidoreductase (carboxylate reductase).

Evidence for a hexaheteromeric methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase in Moorella thermoacetica.

Moorella thermoacetica can grow with H2 and CO2, forming acetic acid from 2 CO2 via the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway. All enzymes involved in this pathway have been characterized to date, except for methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MetF). We report here that the M. thermoacetica gene that putatively encodes this enzyme, metF, is part of a transcription unit also containing the genes hdrCBA, mvhD, and metV. MetF copurified with the other five proteins encoded in the unit in a hexaheteromeric complex with an apparent molecular mass in the 320-kDa range. The 40-fold-enriched preparation contained per mg protein 3.1 nmol flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), 3.4 nmol flavin mononucleotide (FMN), and 110 nmol iron, almost as predicted from the primary structure of the six subunits. It catalyzed the reduction of methylenetetrahydrofolate with reduced benzyl viologen but not with NAD(P)H in either the absence or presence of oxidized ferredoxin. It also catalyzed the reversible reduction of benzyl viologen with NADH (diaphorase activity). Heterologous expression of the metF gene in Escherichia coli revealed that the subunit MetF contains one FMN rather than FAD. MetF exhibited 70-fold-higher methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase activity with benzyl viologen when produced together with MetV, which in part shows sequence similarity to MetF. Heterologously produced HdrA contained 2 FADs and had NAD-specific diaphorase activity. Our results suggested that the physiological electron donor for methylenetetrahydrofolate reduction in M. thermoacetica is NADH and that the exergonic reduction of methylenetetrahydrofolate with NADH is coupled via flavin-based electron bifurcation with the endergonic reduction of an electron acceptor, whose identity remains unknown.

Finis tolueni: a new type of thiolase with an integrated Zn-finger subunit catalyzes the final step of anaerobic toluene metabolism.

Anaerobic toluene degradation involves ß-oxidation of the first intermediate (R)-2-benzylsuccinate to succinyl-CoA and benzoyl-CoA. Here, we characterize the last enzyme of this pathway, (S)-2-benzoylsuccinyl-CoA thiolase (BbsAB). Although benzoylsuccinyl-CoA is not available for enzyme assays, the recombinantly produced enzymes from two different species showed the reverse activity, benzoylsuccinyl-CoA formation from benzoyl-CoA and succinyl-CoA. Activity depended on the presence of both subunits, the thiolase family member BbsB and the Zn-finger protein BbsA, which is affiliated to the DUF35 family of unknown function. We determined the structure of BbsAB from Geobacter metallireducens with and without bound CoA at 1.7 and 2.0 Å resolution, respectively. CoA binding into the well-known thiolase cavity triggers an induced-fit movement of the highly disordered covering loop, resulting in its rigidification by forming multiple interactions to the outstretched CoA moiety. This event is coupled with an 8 Å movement of an adjacent hairpin loop of BbsB and the C-terminal domain of BbsA. Thereby, CoA is placed into a catalytically productive conformation, and a putative second CoA binding site involving BbsA and the partner BbsB' subunit is simultaneously formed that also reaches the active center. Therefore, while maintaining the standard thioester-dependent Claisen-type mechanism, BbsAB represents a new type of thiolase.