van der Woude AD, Perez Gallego R, Vreugdenhil A, Puthan Veetil V, Chroumpi T, Hellingwerf KJ. Genetic engineering of Synechocystis PCC6803 for the photoautotrophic production of the sweetener erythritol.
Microb Cell Fact 2016;
15:60. [PMID:
27059824 PMCID:
PMC4826498 DOI:
10.1186/s12934-016-0458-y]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2016] [Accepted: 03/28/2016] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
Erythritol is a polyol that is used in the food and beverage industry. Due to its non-caloric and non-cariogenic properties, the popularity of this sweetener is increasing. Large scale production of erythritol is currently based on conversion of glucose by selected fungi. In this study, we describe a biotechnological process to produce erythritol from light and CO2, using engineered Synechocystis sp. PCC6803.
Methods
By functionally expressing codon-optimized genes encoding the erythrose-4-phosphate phosphatase TM1254 and the erythrose reductase Gcy1p, or GLD1, this cyanobacterium can directly convert the Calvin cycle intermediate erythrose-4-phosphate into erythritol via a two-step process and release the polyol sugar in the extracellular medium. Further modifications targeted enzyme expression and pathway intermediates.
Conclusions
After several optimization steps, the best strain, SEP024, produced up to 2.1 mM (256 mg/l) erythritol, excreted in the medium.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12934-016-0458-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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