Biosynthesis of long chain hydroxyfatty acids from glucose by engineered Escherichia coli

Fatty acid esters of hydroxy fatty acids: A potential treatment for obesity-related diseases

Obesity, a burgeoning worldwide health system challenge, is associated with multiple chronic diseases, including diabetes and chronic inflammation. Fatty acid esters of hydroxy fatty acids (FAHFAs) are newly identified lipids with mitigating and anti-inflammatory effects in diabetes. Increasing work has shown that FAHFAs exert antioxidant activity and enhance autophagy in neuronal cells and cardiomyocytes. We systematically summarized the biological activities of FAHFAs, including their regulatory effects on diabetes and inflammation, antioxidant activity, and autophagy augmentation. Notably, the structure-activity relationships and potential biosynthesis of FAHFAs are thoroughly discussed. FAHFAs also showed potential roles as diagnostic biomarkers. FAHFAs are a class of resources with promising applications in the biomedical field that require in-depth research and hotspot development, as their structure has not been fully resolved and their biological activity has not been fully revealed.

Biotin attachment domain-containing proteins mediate hydroxy fatty acid-dependent inhibition of acetyl CoA carboxylase

Hundreds of naturally occurring specialized fatty acids (FAs) have potential as desirable chemical feedstocks if they could be produced at large scale by crop plants; however, transgenic expression of their biosynthetic genes has generally been accompanied by dramatic reductions in oil yield. For example, expression of castor (Ricinus communis) FA hydroxylase (FAH) in the Arabidopsis thaliana FA elongation mutant fae1 resulted in a 50% reduction of FA synthesis rate that was attributed to inhibition of acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACCase) by an undefined mechanism. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the ricinoleic acid-dependent decrease in ACCase activity is mediated by biotin attachment domain-containing (BADC) proteins. BADCs are inactive homologs of biotin carboxy carrier protein that lack a biotin cofactor and can inhibit ACCase. Arabidopsis contains three BADC genes. To reduce expression levels of BADC1 and BADC3 in fae1/FAH plants, a homozygous badc1,3/fae1/FAH line was created. The rate of FA synthesis in badc1,3/fae1/FAH seeds doubled relative to fae1/FAH, restoring it to fae1 levels, increasing both native FA and HFA accumulation. Total FA per seed, seed oil content, and seed yield per plant all increased in badc1,3/fae1/FAH, to 5.8 µg, 37%, and 162 mg, respectively, relative to 4.9 µg, 33%, and 126 mg, respectively, for fae1/FAH. Transcript levels of FA synthesis-related genes, including those encoding ACCase subunits, did not significantly differ between badc1,3/fae1/FAH and fae1/FAH. These results demonstrate that BADC1 and BADC3 mediate ricinoleic acid-dependent inhibition of FA synthesis. We propose that BADC-mediated FAS inhibition as a general mechanism that limits FA accumulation in specialized FA-accumulating seeds.

Metabolic Engineering for Enhanced Medium Chain Omega Hydroxy Fatty Acid Production in Escherichia coli

Medium chain hydroxy fatty acids (HFAs) at ω-1, 2, or 3 positions (ω-1/2/3) are rare in nature but are attractive due to their potential applications in industry. They can be metabolically engineered in Escherichia coli, however, the current yield is low. In this study, metabolic engineering with P450_BM3 monooxygenase was applied to regulate both the chain length and sub-terminal position of HFA products in E. coli, leading to increased yield. Five acyl-acyl carrier protein thioesterases from plants and bacteria were first evaluated for regulating the chain length of fatty acids. Co-expression of the selected thioesterase gene CcFatB1 with a fatty acid metabolism regulator fadR and monooxygenase P450_BM3 boosted the production of HFAs especially ω-3-OH-C14:1, in both the wild type and fadD deficient strain. Supplementing renewable glycerol to reduce the usage of glucose as a carbon source further increased the HFAs production to 144 mg/L, representing the highest titer of such HFAs obtained in E. coli under the comparable conditions. This study illustrated an improved metabolic strategy for medium chain ω-1/2/3 HFAs production in E. coli. In addition, the produced HFAs were mostly secreted into culture media, which eased its recovery.

An auto-inducible Escherichia coli strain obtained by adaptive laboratory evolution for fatty acid synthesis from ionic liquid-treated bamboo hydrolysate

Adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) is a useful metabolic engineering strategy, which allows the selection of the microorganisms with beneficial phenotype through accumulative beneficial mutations among genetic variations occurrencely. Following ALE strategy, a rational constructed Escherichia coli strain DQ101 for fatty acids synthesis was adaptively evolved for 90days with increasing [C₄mim]Cl concentration from 1% to 7% (w/v). The evolved strain DQ102 reached a final OD₆₀₀ of 4.93 at the end of the 24h culture with 7% (w/v) ionic liquid. DQ102/pDQTES with a thioesterase 'TesA overexpression could produce 1.12g/L fatty acid with a productivity of 0.023g/L-h from ionic liquid-treated bamboo hydrolysate. With another β-hydroxyacyl-ACP dehydratases (fabZ) overexpression, DQ102/pDQTESZ could reach a higher concentration of 2.29g/L with a productivity of 0.048g/L-h. These results indicated that ALE could be implemented as a useful tool for metabolic engineering and production of bio-fuels, as well as commodity and specialty chemicals.

Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli for the production of hydroxy fatty acids from glucose

Background

Hydroxy fatty acids (HFAs) are valuable chemicals for a broad variety of applications. However, commercial production of HFAs has not been established so far due to the lack of low cost routes for their synthesis. Although the microbial transformation pathway of HFAs was extensively studied decades ago, these attempts mainly focused on converting fatty acids or vegetable oils to their hydroxyl counterparts. The use of a wider range of feedstocks to produce HFAs would reduce the dependence on oil crops and be expected to cut down the manufacturing cost.

Results

In this study, the industrially important microorganism Escherichia coli was engineered to produce HFAs directly from glucose. Through the coexpression of the acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACCase) and the leadless acyl-CoA thioesterase (‘TesA), and knockout of the endogenous acyl-CoA synthetase (FadD), an engineered E. coli strain was constructed to efficiently synthesize free fatty acids (FFAs). Under shake-flask conditions, 244.8 mg/L of FFAs were obtained by a 12 h induced culture. Then the fatty acid hydroxylase (CYP102A1) from Bacillus megaterium was introduced into this strain and high-level production of HFAs was achieved. The finally engineered strain BL21ΔfadD/pE-A1’tesA&pA-acc accumulated up to 58.7 mg/L of HFAs in the culture broth. About 24 % of the FFAs generated by the thioesterase were converted to HFAs. Fatty acid composition analysis showed that the HFAs mainly consisted of 9-hydroxydecanoic acid (9-OH-C10), 11-hydroxydodecanoic acid (11-OH-C12), 10-hydroxyhexadecanoic acid (10-OH-C16) and 12-hydroxyoctadecanoic acid (12-OH-C18). Fed-batch fermentation of this strain further increased the final titer of HFAs to 548 mg/L.

Conclusions

A robust HFA-producing strain was successfully constructed using glucose as the feedstock, which demonstrated a novel strategy for bioproduction of HFAs. The results of this work suggest that metabolically engineered E. coli has the potential to be a microbial cell factory for large-scale production of HFAs.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12896-016-0257-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Yield and kinetic constants estimation in the production of hydroxy fatty acids from oleic acid in a bioreactor by Pseudomonas aeruginosa 42A2

We modelled the production of hydroxy fatty acids from oleic acid by Pseudomonas aeruginosa 42A2 in a bioreactor with a non-dispersive aeration system. First, we designed an adapted wetted-wall gas-absorption column, offering a k La value of 39.9 h(-1), to enhance oxygen absorption in the culture media and prevent foam formation. Then, we analysed different kinetic models to simulate the yield coefficients and the kinetic constants in this bacterial transformation. Monod model fitting (μ max1 = 0.51 h(-1), K S1 = 1.60 C-mol l(-1), μ max2 = 0.12 h(-1), K S2 = 0.035 C-mol l(-1), and k 2 = 0.033 h(-1)) showed a good accuracy with the experimental data sets and was chosen for its simplicity. Lastly, mass balances were carried out to establish the stoichiometry of this biotransformation with the following yield coefficients, Υ X/OA, Υ X/(10S)-HPOME and Υ (10S)-HPOME/(7S10S)-HPOME of 0.172, 0.347 and 2.388 C-mol C-mol(-1), respectively.

Production of hydroxy fatty acids by microbial fatty acid-hydroxylation enzymes

Hydroxy fatty acids are widely used in chemical, food, and cosmetic industries as starting materials for the synthesis of polymers and as additives for the manufacture of lubricants, emulsifiers, and stabilizers. They have antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer activities and therefore can be applied for medicinal uses. Microbial fatty acid-hydroxylation enzymes, including P450, lipoxygenase, hydratase, 12-hydroxylase, and diol synthase, synthesize regio-specific hydroxy fatty acids. In this article, microbial fatty acid-hydroxylation enzymes, with a focus on region-specificity and diversity, are summarized and the production of mono-, di-, and tri-hydroxy fatty acids is introduced. Finally, the production methods of regio-specific and diverse hydroxy fatty acids, such as gene screening, protein engineering, metabolic engineering, and combinatory biosynthesis, are suggested.

Production of 10(S)-hydroxy-8(E)-octadecenoic and 7,10(S,S)-hydroxy-8(E)-octadecenoic ethyl esters by Novozym 435 in solvent-free media

Novozym 435, lipase B from Candida antarctica, was used in this study for the production of ethyl esters. For the first time, trans-hydroxy-fatty acid ethyl esters were synthesized in vitro in solvent-free media. We studied the effects of the substrate-ethanol molar ratio and enzyme synthetic stability of the biocatalyst. To determine the structure of the formed compounds, Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry were used, three less time-consuming structural techniques. trans-Hydroxy-fatty acid ethyl esters were synthesized with a reaction yield of 90 % or higher with optimal reaction conditions.

Overexpression of peanut diacylglycerol acyltransferase 2 in Escherichia coli

Diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT) is the rate-limiting enzyme in triacylglycerol biosynthesis in eukaryotic organisms. Triacylglycerols are important energy-storage oils in plants such as peanuts, soybeans and rape. In this study, Arachis hypogaea type 2 DGAT (AhDGAT2) genes were cloned from the peanut cultivar ‘Luhua 14’ using a homologous gene sequence method and rapid amplification of cDNA ends. To understand the role of AhDGAT2 in triacylglycerol biosynthesis, two AhDGAT2 nucleotide sequences that differed by three amino acids were expressed as glutathione S-transferase (GST) fusion proteins in Escherichia coli Rosetta (DE3). Following IPTG induction, the isozymes (AhDGAT2a and AhDGAT2b) were expressed as 64.5 kDa GST fusion proteins. Both AhDGAT2a and AhDGAT2b occurred in the host cell cytoplasm and inclusion bodies, with larger amounts in the inclusion bodies. Overexpression of AhDGATs depressed the host cell growth rates relative to non-transformed cells, but cells harboring empty-vector, AhDGAT2a–GST, or AhDGAT2b–GST exhibited no obvious growth rate differences. Interestingly, induction of AhDGAT2a–GST and AhDGAT2b–GST proteins increased the sizes of the host cells by 2.4–2.5 times that of the controls (post-IPTG induction). The total fatty acid (FA) levels of the AhDGAT2a–GST and AhDGAT2a–GST transformants, as well as levels of C12:0, C14:0, C16:0, C16:1, C18:1n9c and C18:3n3 FAs, increased markedly, whereas C15:0 and C21:0 levels were lower than in non-transformed cells or those containing empty-vectors. In addition, the levels of some FAs differed between the two transformant strains, indicating that the two isozymes might have different functions in peanuts. This is the first time that a full-length recombinant peanut DGAT2 has been produced in a bacterial expression system and the first analysis of its effects on the content and composition of fatty acids in E. coli. Our results indicate that AhDGAT2 is a strong candidate gene for efficient FA production in E. coli.

Optimization of fatty alcohol biosynthesis pathway for selectively enhanced production of C12/14 and C16/18 fatty alcohols in engineered Escherichia coli

BACKGROUND

With the increasing stress from oil price and environmental pollution, aroused attention has been paid to the microbial production of chemicals from renewable sources. The C12/14 and C16/18 alcohols are important feedstocks for the production of surfactants and detergents, which are widely used in the most respected consumer detergents, cleaning products and personal care products worldwide. Though bioproduction of fatty alcohols has been carried out in engineered E. coli, several key problems have not been solved in earlier studies, such as the quite low production of C16/18 alcohol, the lack of optimization of the fatty alcohol biosynthesis pathway, and the uncharacterized performance of the engineered strains in scaled-up system.

RESULTS

We improved the fatty alcohol production by systematically optimizing the fatty alcohol biosynthesis pathway, mainly targeting three key steps from fatty acyl-acyl carrier proteins (ACPs) to fatty alcohols, which are sequentially catalyzed by thioesterase, acyl-coenzyme A (CoA) synthase and fatty acyl-CoA reductase. By coexpression of thioesterase gene BTE, acyl-CoA synthase gene fadD and fatty acyl-CoA reductase gene acr1, 210.1 mg/L C12/14 alcohol was obtained. A further optimization of expression level of BTE, fadD and acr1 increased the C12/14 alcohol production to 449.2 mg/L, accounting for 75.0% of the total fatty alcohol production (598.6 mg/L). In addition, by coexpression of thioesterase gene 'tesA, acyl-CoA synthase gene fadD and fatty acyl-CoA reductase gene FAR, 101.5 mg/L C16/18 alcohol was obtained, with C16/18 alcohol accounting for 89.2% of the total fatty alcohol production.

CONCLUSIONS

To our knowledge, this is the first report on selective production of C12/14 and C16/18 alcohols by microbial fermentation. This work achieved high-specificity production of both C12/14 and C16/18 alcohols. The encouraging 598.6 mg/L of fatty alcohols represents the highest titer reported so far. In addition, the 101.5 mg/L 89.2% C16/18 alcohol suggests an important breakthrough in C16/18 alcohol production. A more detailed optimization of the expression level of fatty alcohol biosynthesis pathway may contribute to a further improvement of fatty alcohol production.