Biotechnologie von Morgen: metabolisch optimierte Zellen für die bio-basierte Produktion von Chemikalien und Treibstoffen, Materialien und Gesundheitsprodukten

Efficient Synthesis of Phenylacetate and 2-Phenylethanol by Modular Cascade Biocatalysis

The green and sustainable synthesis of chemicals from renewable feedstocks by a biotransformation approach has gained increasing attention in recent years. In this work, we developed enzymatic cascades to efficiently convert l-phenylalanine into 2-phenylethanol (2-PE) and phenylacetic acid (PAA), l-tyrosine into tyrosol (p-hydroxyphenylethanol, p-HPE) and p-hydroxyphenylacetic acid (p-HPAA). The enzymatic cascade was cast into an aromatic aldehyde formation module, followed by an aldehyde reduction module, or aldehyde oxidation module, to achieve one-pot biotransformation by using recombinant Escherichia coli. Biotransformation of 50 mM l-Phe produced 6.76 g/L PAA with more than 99 % conversion and 5.95 g/L of 2-PE with 97 % conversion. The bioconversion efficiencies of p-HPAA and p-HPE from l-Tyr reached to 88 and 94 %, respectively. In addition, m-fluoro-phenylalanine was further employed as an unnatural aromatic amino acid substrate to obtain m-fluoro-phenylacetic acid; >96 % conversion was achieved. Our results thus demonstrated high-yielding and potential industrial synthesis of above aromatic compounds by one-pot cascade biocatalysis.

Transition Metal-Free Reduction of Activated Alkenes Using a Living Microorganism

Microorganisms can be programmed to perform chemical synthesis via metabolic engineering. However, despite an increasing interest in the use of de novo metabolic pathways and designer whole-cells for small molecule synthesis, the inherent synthetic capabilities of native microorganisms remain underexplored. Herein, we report the use of unmodified E. coli BL21(DE3) cells for the reduction of keto-acrylic compounds and apply this whole-cell biotransformation to the synthesis of aminolevulinic acid from a lignin-derived feedstock. The reduction reaction is rapid, chemo-, and enantioselective, occurs under mild conditions (37 °C, aqueous media), and requires no toxic transition metals or external reductants. This study demonstrates the remarkable promiscuity of central metabolism in bacterial cells and how these processes can be leveraged for synthetic chemistry without the need for genetic manipulation.

Bioproduction of Benzylamine from Renewable Feedstocks via a Nine-Step Artificial Enzyme Cascade and Engineered Metabolic Pathways

Production of chemicals from renewable feedstocks has been an important task for sustainable chemical industry. Although microbial fermentation has been widely employed to produce many biochemicals, it is still very challenging to access non-natural chemicals. Two methods (biotransformation and fermentation) have been developed for the first bio-derived synthesis of benzylamine, a commodity non-natural amine with broad applications. Firstly, a nine-step artificial enzyme cascade was designed by biocatalytic retrosynthetic analysis and engineered in recombinant E. coli LZ243. Biotransformation of l-phenylalanine (60 mm) with the E. coli cells produced benzylamine (42 mm) in 70 % conversion. Importantly, the cascade biotransformation was scaled up to 100 mL and benzylamine was successfully isolated in 57 % yield. Secondly, an artificial biosynthesis pathway to benzylamine from glucose was developed by combining the nine-step cascade with an enhanced l-phenylalanine synthesis pathway in cells. Fermentation with E. coli LZ249 gave benzylamine in 4.3 mm concentration from glucose. In addition, one-pot syntheses of several useful benzylamines from the easily available styrenes were achieved, representing a new type of alkene transformation by formal oxidative cleavage and reductive amination.

Characterization of Terminators in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and an Exploration of Factors Affecting Their Strength

Terminators in eukaryotes play an important role in regulating the transcription process by influencing mRNA stability, translational efficiency, and localization. Herein, the strengths of 100 natural terminators in Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been characterized by inserting each terminator downstream of the TYS1p-enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) reporter gene and measuring the fluorescent intensity (FI) of eGFP. Within this library, there are 45 strong terminators, 31 moderate terminators, and 24 weak terminators. The strength of these terminators, relative to that of PGK1t standard terminator, ranges from 0.0613 to 1.8002, with a mean relative FI of 0.9945. Mutating the control elements of terminators further suggests that the efficiency element has an important effect on terminator strength. The use of strong terminators will result in an enhanced level of mRNA and protein production; this indicates that gene expression can be directly influenced by terminator selection. Pairing a terminator with an inducible promoter or a strong constitutive promoter has less effect on gene expression; however, pairing with a week promoter will significantly increase the level of gene expression. Through exchange of the reporter genes, it can be demonstrated that the terminator functions as a genetic component and is independent of the coding region. This work demonstrates that the terminator is an important regulatory element and can be considered in applications for the fine-tuning of gene expression and metabolic pathways.

Microbial Production of Amino Acid-Related Compounds

Corynebacterium glutamicum is the workhorse of the production of proteinogenic amino acids used in food and feed biotechnology. After more than 50 years of safe amino acid production, C. glutamicum has recently also been engineered for the production of amino acid-derived compounds, which find various applications, e.g., as synthons for the chemical industry in several markets including the polymer market. The amino acid-derived compounds such as non-proteinogenic ω-amino acids, α,ω-diamines, and cyclic or hydroxylated amino acids have similar carbon backbones and functional groups as their amino acid precursors. Decarboxylation of amino acids may yield ω-amino acids such as β-alanine, γ-aminobutyrate, and δ-aminovalerate as well as α,ω-diamines such as putrescine and cadaverine. Since transamination is the final step in several amino acid biosynthesis pathways, 2-keto acids as immediate amino acid precursors are also amenable to production using recombinant C. glutamicum strains. Approaches for metabolic engineering of C. glutamicum for production of amino acid-derived compounds will be described, and where applicable, production from alternative carbon sources or use of genome streamline will be referred to. The excellent large-scale fermentation experience with C. glutamicum offers the possibility that these amino acid-derived speciality products may enter large-volume markets.

Alcoholysis: A Promising Technology for Conversion of Lignocellulose and Platform Chemicals

In the catalytic conversion of lignocellulose to valuable products, the first entry point is to break down these biopolymers to sugar units or aromatic monomers, which is conventionally achieved by hydrolysis in water medium. Recent years have seen tremendous progress in the alcoholysis process, which has remarkable advantages, such as the avoidance of treating waste water, suppression of humins or chars, and enhancement of reaction rate and product yield. Advances have been focused on the alcoholysis of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin to alkyl glucosides, xylosides, and aromatic monomers, respectively. Alcoholysis of the platform molecule furfuryl alcohol (FAL) to alkyl levulinate (AL) and integrated alcoholysis of cellulose and furfural into AL are also summarized. This Minireview highlights the comparisons between alcoholysis and hydrolysis, the reaction mechanism of alcoholysis, and future challenges for industrial applications.

Cascade Biocatalysis for Sustainable Asymmetric Synthesis: From Biobased l-Phenylalanine to High-Value Chiral Chemicals

Sustainable synthesis of useful and valuable chiral fine chemicals from renewable feedstocks is highly desirable but remains challenging. Reported herein is a designed and engineered set of unique non-natural biocatalytic cascades to achieve the asymmetric synthesis of chiral epoxide, diols, hydroxy acid, and amino acid in high yield and with excellent ee values from the easily available biobased l-phenylalanine. Each of the cascades was efficiently performed in one pot by using the cells of a single recombinant strain over-expressing 4-10 different enzymes. The cascade biocatalysis approach is promising for upgrading biobased bulk chemicals to high-value chiral chemicals. In addition, combining the non-natural enzyme cascades with the natural metabolic pathway of the host strain enabled the fermentative production of the chiral fine chemicals from glucose.

Designer Micelles Accelerate Flux Through Engineered Metabolism in E. coli and Support Biocompatible Chemistry

Synthetic biology has enabled the production of many value-added chemicals via microbial fermentation. However, the problem of low product titers from recombinant pathways has limited the utility of this approach. Methods to increase metabolic flux are therefore critical to the success of metabolic engineering. Here we demonstrate that vitamin E-derived designer micelles, originally developed for use in synthetic chemistry, are biocompatible and accelerate flux through a styrene production pathway in Escherichia coli. We show that these micelles associate non-covalently with the bacterial outer-membrane and that this interaction increases membrane permeability. In addition, these micelles also accommodate both heterogeneous and organic-soluble transition metal catalysts and accelerate biocompatible cyclopropanation in vivo. Overall, this work demonstrates that these surfactants hold great promise for further application in the field of synthetic biotechnology, and for expanding the types of molecules that can be readily accessed from renewable resources via the combination of microbial fermentation and biocompatible chemistry.

Metabolic pathway engineering for production of 1,2-propanediol and 1-propanol by Corynebacterium glutamicum

BACKGROUND

Production of the versatile bulk chemical 1,2-propanediol and the potential biofuel 1-propanol is still dependent on petroleum, but some approaches to establish bio-based production from renewable feed stocks and to avoid toxic intermediates have been described. The biotechnological workhorse Corynebacterium glutamicum has also been shown to be able to overproduce 1,2-propanediol by metabolic engineering. Additionally, C. glutamicum has previously been engineered for production of the biofuels ethanol and isobutanol but not for 1-propanol.

RESULTS

In this study, the improved production of 1,2-propanediol by C. glutamicum is presented. The product yield of a C. glutamicum strain expressing the heterologous genes gldA and mgsA from Escherichia coli that encode methylglyoxal synthase gene and glycerol dehydrogenase, respectively, was improved by additional expression of alcohol dehydrogenase gene yqhD from E. coli leading to a yield of 0.131 mol/mol glucose. Deletion of the endogenous genes hdpA and ldh encoding dihydroxyacetone phosphate phosphatase and lactate dehydrogenase, respectively, prevented formation of glycerol and lactate as by-products and improved the yield to 0.343 mol/mol glucose. To construct a 1-propanol producer, the operon ppdABC from Klebsiella oxytoca encoding diol dehydratase was expressed in the improved 1,2-propanediol producing strain ending up with 12 mM 1-propanol and up to 60 mM unconverted 1,2-propanediol. Thus, B12-dependent diol dehydratase activity may be limiting 1-propanol production.

CONCLUSIONS

Production of 1,2-propanediol by C. glutamicum was improved by metabolic engineering targeting endogenous enzymes. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, production of 1-propanol by recombinant C. glutamicum was demonstrated for the first time.

Interfacing microbial styrene production with a biocompatible cyclopropanation reaction

The introduction of new reactivity into living organisms is a major challenge in synthetic biology. Despite an increasing interest in both the development of small-molecule catalysts that are compatible with aqueous media and the engineering of enzymes to perform new chemistry in vitro, the integration of non-native reactivity into metabolic pathways for small-molecule production has been underexplored. Herein we report a biocompatible iron(III) phthalocyanine catalyst capable of efficient olefin cyclopropanation in the presence of a living microorganism. By interfacing this catalyst with E. coli engineered to produce styrene, we synthesized non-natural phenyl cyclopropanes directly from D-glucose in single-vessel fermentations. This process is the first example of the combination of nonbiological carbene-transfer reactivity with cellular metabolism for small-molecule production.