Genetic and nutrient modulation of acetyl-CoA levels in Synechocystis for n-butanol production.
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Anfelt J, Kaczmarzyk D, Shabestary K, Renberg B, Rockberg J, Nielsen J, Uhlén M, Hudson EP
Microb Cell Fact 14 (1) 167 [2015-10-16; online 2015-10-16]
There is a strong interest in using photosynthetic cyanobacteria as production hosts for biofuels and chemicals. Recent work has shown the benefit of pathway engineering, enzyme tolerance, and co-factor usage for improving yields of fermentation products. An n-butanol pathway was inserted into a Synechocystis mutant deficient in polyhydroxybutyrate synthesis. We found that nitrogen starvation increased specific butanol productivity up to threefold, but cessation of cell growth limited total n-butanol titers. Metabolite profiling showed that acetyl-CoA increased twofold during nitrogen starvation. Introduction of a phosphoketolase increased acetyl-CoA levels sixfold at nitrogen replete conditions and increased butanol titers from 22 to 37 mg/L at day 8. Flux balance analysis of photoautotrophic metabolism showed that a Calvin-Benson-Bassham-Phosphoketolase pathway had higher theoretical butanol productivity than CBB-Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas and a reduced butanol ATP demand. These results demonstrate that phosphoketolase overexpression and modulation of nitrogen levels are two attractive routes toward increased production of acetyl-CoA derived products in cyanobacteria and could be implemented with complementary metabolic engineering strategies.
PubMed 26474754
DOI 10.1186/s12934-015-0355-9
Crossref 10.1186/s12934-015-0355-9
pii: 10.1186/s12934-015-0355-9
pmc: PMC4609045