Enhancement of extracellular expression of Bacillus naganoensis pullulanase from recombinant Bacillus subtilis: Effects of promoter and host

Heterologous expression and characterization of an unsaturated glucuronyl hydrolase from Alteromonas sp. A321

Strong promoters and stable mRNAs are essential for the overproduction of heterologous proteins in Bacillus subtilis. To improve the strength of natural promoters and ensure robust protein output, promoter and genetic insulator engineering have been used. A series of plasmids containing single and dual promoters and genetic insulators to express alt3796 were engineered, which encoded an unsaturated glucuronyl hydrolase (UGL). As a first step, we screened the host and deleted the signal peptide (SPALT) of alt3796, successfully expressed secreted ALT3796 from B. subtilis WB800. Subsequently, to improve expression, we screened the dual promoter PHag-spoVG from a collection of 22 promoters, which yielded higher enzymatic activity. Finally, using a recombinant strain carrying a plasmid with the PHag-spoVG dual promoter and a genetic insulator, we obtained 40.9 U/mL of activity. Purified recombinant ALT3796 exhibited good stability and specifically degraded ulvan. In conclusion, a system for the heterologous expression of ALT3796 was constructed, and the obtained protein exhibited favorable properties, suggesting its potential for preparing novel ulvan oligosaccharides.

Advances in recombinant protease production: current state and perspectives

Proteases, enzymes that catalyze the hydrolysis of peptide bonds in proteins, are important in the food industry, biotechnology, and medical fields. With increasing demand for proteases, there is a growing emphasis on enhancing their expression and production through microbial systems. However, proteases' native hosts often fall short in high-level expression and compatibility with downstream applications. As a result, the recombinant production of proteases has become a significant focus, offering a solution to these challenges. This review presents an overview of the current state of protease production in prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression systems, highlighting key findings and trends. In prokaryotic systems, the Bacillus spp. is the predominant host for proteinase expression. Yeasts are commonly used in eukaryotic systems. Recent advancements in protease engineering over the past five years, including rational design and directed evolution, are also highlighted. By exploring the progress in both expression systems and engineering techniques, this review provides a detailed understanding of the current landscape of recombinant protease research and its prospects for future advancements.

A 4-α-Glucanotransferase from Thermus thermophilus HB8: Secretory Expression and Characterization

4-α-glucanotransferase (4GT, EC 2.4.1.25) catalyzes the breakdown of the α-1,4 glycosidic bonds of the starch main chain and forms new α-1,4 glycosidic bonds in the side chain, which is often used to optimize the physical and chemical properties of starch and to improve the quality of starch-based food. However, the low enzyme activity of 4GT limits its production and widespread application. Herein, the 4GT gene encoding 500 amino acids from Thermus thermophilus HB8 was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. The purified 4GT exhibited maximum activity at pH 7.0 and 60 °C and had a good stability at pH 6.0-8.0 and 30-60 °C. It was confirmed that 4GT possessed the catalytic function of extending the branch length of potato starch. Furthermore, the 4GT gene was successfully expressed extracellularly in Bacillus subtilis. Then, the enzyme yield of 4GT increased by 4.1 times through screening of different plasmids and hosts. Additionally, the fermentation conditions were optimized to enhance 4GT extracellular enzyme yield. Finally, a recombinant Bacillus subtilis with 299.9 U/mL enzyme yield of 4GT was obtained under the optimized fermentation process. In conclusion, this study provides a valuable reference for characterization and expression of food-grade enzymes.

Multiple Modular Engineering of Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens Cell Factories for Enhanced Production of Alkaline Proteases From B. Clausii

Bacillus amyloliquefaciens is a generally recognized as safe (GRAS) microorganism that presents great potential for the production of heterologous proteins. In this study, we performed genomic and comparative transcriptome to investigate the critical modular in B. amyloliquefaciens on the production of heterologous alkaline proteases (AprE). After investigation, it was concluded that the key modules affecting the production of alkaline protease were the sporulation germination module (Module I), extracellular protease synthesis module (Module II), and extracellular polysaccharide synthesis module (Module III) in B. amyloliquefaciens. In Module I, AprE yield for mutant BA ΔsigF was 25.3% greater than that of BA Δupp. Combining Module I synergistically with mutation of extracellular proteases in Module II significantly increased AprE production by 36.1% compared with production by BA Δupp. In Module III, the mutation of genes controlling extracellular polysaccharides reduced the viscosity and the accumulation of sediment, and increased the rate of dissolved oxygen in fermentation. Moreover, AprE production was 39.6% higher than in BA Δupp when Modules I, II and III were engineered in combination. This study provides modular engineering strategies for the modification of B. amyloliquefaciens for the production of alkaline proteases.

An overview and future prospects of recombinant protein production in Bacillus subtilis

Bacillus subtilis is a well-characterized Gram-positive bacterium and a valuable host for recombinant protein production because of its efficient secretion ability, high yield, and non-toxicity. Here, we comprehensively review the recent studies on recombinant protein production in B. subtilis to update and supplement other previous reviews. We have focused on several aspects, including optimization of B. subtilis strains, enhancement and regulation of expression, improvement of secretion level, surface display of proteins, and fermentation optimization. Among them, optimization of B. subtilis strains mainly involves undirected chemical/physical mutagenesis and selection and genetic manipulation; enhancement and regulation of expression comprises autonomous plasmid and integrated expression, promoter regulation and engineering, and fine-tuning gene expression based on proteases and molecular chaperones; improvement of secretion level predominantly involves secretion pathway and signal peptide screening and optimization; surface display of proteins includes surface display of proteins on spores or vegetative cells; and fermentation optimization incorporates medium optimization, process condition optimization, and feeding strategy optimization. Furthermore, we propose some novel methods and future challenges for recombinant protein production in B. subtilis.Key points• A comprehensive review on recombinant protein production in Bacillus subtilis.• Novel techniques facilitate recombinant protein expression and secretion.• Surface display of proteins has significant potential for different applications.

The multifunctionality of expression systems in Bacillus subtilis: Emerging devices for the production of recombinant proteins

Bacillus subtilis is a successful host for producing recombinant proteins. Its GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status and its remarkable innate ability to absorb and incorporate exogenous DNA into its genome make this organism an ideal platform for the heterologous expression of bioactive substances. The factors that corroborate its value can be attributed to the scientific knowledge obtained from decades of study regarding its biology that has fostered the development of several genetic engineering strategies, such as the use of different plasmids, engineering of constitutive or double promoters, chemical inducers, systems of self-inducing expression with or without a secretion system that uses a signal peptide, and so on. Tools that enrich the technological arsenal of this expression platform improve the efficiency and reduce the costs of production of proteins of biotechnological importance. Therefore, this review aims to highlight the major advances involving recombinant expression systems developed in B. subtilis, thus sustaining the generation of knowledge and its application in future research. It was verified that this bacterium is a model in constant demand and studies of the expression of recombinant proteins on a large scale are increasing in number. As such, it represents a powerful bacterial host for academic research and industrial purposes.

Microbial starch debranching enzymes: Developments and applications

Starch debranching enzymes (SDBEs) hydrolyze the α-1,6 glycosidic bonds in polysaccharides such as starch, amylopectin, pullulan and glycogen. SDBEs are also important enzymes for the preparation of sugar syrup, resistant starch and cyclodextrin. As the synergistic catalysis of SDBEs and other starch-acting hydrolases can effectively improve the raw material utilization and production efficiency during starch processing steps such as saccharification and modification, they have attracted substantial research interest in the past decades. The substrate specificities of the two major members of SDBEs, pullulanases and isoamylases, are quite different. Pullulanases generally require at least two α-1,4 linked glucose units existing on both sugar chains linked by the α-1,6 bond, while isoamylases require at least three units of α-1,4 linked glucose. SDBEs mainly belong to glycoside hydrolase (GH) family 13 and 57. Except for GH57 type II pullulanse, GH13 pullulanases and isoamylases share plenty of similarities in sequence and structure of the core catalytic domains. However, the N-terminal domains, which might be one of the determinants contributing to the substrate binding of SDBEs, are distinct in different enzymes. In order to overcome the current defects of SDBEs in catalytic efficiency, thermostability and expression level, great efforts have been made to develop effective enzyme engineering and fermentation strategies. Herein, the diverse biochemical properties and distinct features in the sequence and structure of pullulanase and isoamylase from different sources are summarized. Up-to-date developments in the enzyme engineering, heterologous production and industrial applications of SDBEs is also reviewed. Finally, research perspective which could help understanding and broadening the applications of SDBEs are provided.

Recent Advances in Recombinant Protein Production byBacillus subtilis

Bacillus subtilis has become a widely used microbial cell factory for the production of recombinant proteins, especially those associated with foods and food processing. Recent advances in genetic manipulation and proteomic analysis have been used to greatly improve protein production in B. subtilis. This review begins with a discussion of genome-editing technologies and application of the CRISPR–Cas9 system to B. subtilis. A summary of the characteristics of crucial legacy strains is followed by suggestions regarding the choice of origin strain for genetic manipulation. Finally, the review analyzes the genes and operons of B. subtilis that are important for the production of secretory proteins and provides suggestions and examples of how they can be altered to improve protein production. This review is intended to promote the engineering of this valuable microbial cell factory for better recombinant protein production.

Construction of second generation protease-deficient hosts of Bacillus subtilis for secretion of foreign proteins

Although one of the major factors limiting the application of Bacillus subtilis as an expression host has been its production of at least eight extracellular proteases, researchers have also noticed that some proteases benefited the secretion of foreign proteins at times. Therefore, to maximize the yield of a foreign protein, the proteases should be selectively inactivated. This raises a new question that how to identify the favorable and unfavorable proteases for a target protein. Here, an evaluation system containing nine mutant strains of B. subtilis 168 was developed to address this question. The mutant strain PD8 has all the eight proteases inactivated whereas each of the other eight mutant strains expresses only one kind of these eight proteases. The target protein is secreted in these nine mutant strains; if the production of target protein in a mutant strain is higher than that in strain PD8, the corresponding protease is regarded as favorable. Accordingly, the optimal protease-deficient host is constructed through inactivating the unfavorable proteases. The effectiveness of this system was confirmed by expressing three foreign proteins. This study provides a strategy for improving the secretion of a foreign protein in B. subtilis through tailoring a personalized protease-deficient host.

Industrially produced pullulanases with thermostability: Discovery, engineering, and heterologous expression

Pullulanases (EC 3.2.1.41) are well-known starch-debranching enzymes widely used to hydrolyze α-1,6-glucosidic linkages in starch, pullulan, amylopectin, and other oligosaccharides, with application potentials in food, brewing, and pharmaceutical industries. Although extensive studies are done to discover and express pullulanases, only few are available with desirable characteristics for industrial applications. This raises the challenge to mine new enzyme sources, engineer proteins based on sequence/structure, and regulate expressions. We review here the identification of extremophilic and mesophilic microbes as sources of industrial pullulanases with desirable characteristics, including acid-resistance, thermostability, and psychrotrophism. We present current advances in site-directed mutagenesis and sequence/structure-guided protein engineering of pullulanases. In addition, we discuss heterologous expression of pullulanases in prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbial systems, and address the effectiveness of the expression elements and their regulation of enzyme production. Finally, we indicate future research needs to develop desired industrial pullulanases.

Advances and challenges in the production of extracellular thermoduric pullulanases by wild-type and recombinant microorganisms: a review

Thermoduric pullulanases, acting as starch-debranching enzymes, are required in many industrial applications, mainly in the production of concentrated glucose, maltose, and fructose syrups. To date, however, a single pullulanase, from Bacillus acidopullulyticus, is available on the market for industrial purposes. This review is an investigation of the major advances as well as the major challenges being faced with regard to optimization of the production of extracellular thermoduric pullulanases either by their original hosts or by recombinant organisms. The critical aspects linked to industrial pullulanase production, which should always be considered, are emphasized, including those parameters influencing solubility, thermostability, and catalytic efficiency of the enzyme. This review provides new insights for improving the production of extracellular thermoduric pullulanases in the hope that such information may facilitate their commercial utilization and potentially be applied to the development of other industrially relevant enzymes.

Enhanced Expression of Pullulanase in Bacillus subtilis by New Strong Promoters Mined From Transcriptome Data, Both Alone and in Combination

Pullulanase plays an important role as a starch hydrolysis enzyme in the production of bio-fuels and animal feed, and in the food industry. Compared to the methods currently used for pullulanase production, synthesis by Bacillus subtilis would be safer and easier. However, the current yield of pullulanase from B. subtilis is low to meet industrial requirements. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the yield of pullulanase by B. subtilis. In this study, we mined 10 highly active promoters from B. subtilis based on transcriptome and bioinformatic data. Individual promoters and combinations of promoters were used to improve the yield of pullulanase in B. subtilis BS001. Four recombinant strains with new promoters (Phag, PtufA, PsodA, and PfusA) had higher enzyme activity than the control (PamyE). The strain containing PsodA+fusA (163 U/mL) and the strain containing PsodA+fusA+amyE (336 U/mL) had the highest activity among the analyzed dual- and triple-promoter construct stains in shake flask, which were 2.29 and 4.73 times higher than that of the strain with PamyE, respectively. Moreover, the activity of the strain containing PsodA+fusA+amyE showed a maximum activity of 1,555 U/mL, which was 21.9 times higher than that of the flask-grown PamyE strain in a 50-liter fermenter. Our work showed that these four strong promoters mined from transcriptome data and their combinations could reliably increase the yield of pullulanase in quantities suitable for industrial applications.

Efficient production of extracellular pullulanase in Bacillus subtilis ATCC6051 using the host strain construction and promoter optimization expression system

Background

Bacillus subtilis has been widely used as a host for heterologous protein expression in food industry. B. subtilis ATCC6051 is an alternative expression host for the production of industrial enzymes, and exhibits favorable growth properties compared to B. subtilis 168. Extracellular expression of pullulanase from recombinant B. subtilis is still limited due to the issues on promoters of B. subtilis expression system. This study was undertaken to develop a new, high-level expression system in B. subtilis ATCC6051.

Results

To further optimize B. subtilis ATCC6051 as a expression host, eight extracellular proteases (aprE, nprE, nprB, epr, mpr, bpr, vpr and wprA), the sigma factor F (spoIIAC) and a surfactin (srfAC) were deleted, yielding the mutant B. subtilis ATCC6051∆10. ATCC6051∆10 showed rapid growth and produced much more extracellular protein compared to the widetype strain ATCC6051, due to the inactivation of multiple proteases. Using this mutant as the host, eleven plasmids equipped with single promoters were constructed for recombinant expression of pullulanase (PUL) from Bacillus naganoensis. The plasmid containing the P_spovG promoter produced the highest extracellular PUL activity, which achieved 412.9 U/mL. Subsequently, sixteen dual-promoter plasmids were constructed and evaluated using this same method. The plasmid containing the dual promoter P_amyL–P_spovG produced the maximum extracellular PUL activity (625.5 U/mL) and showed the highest expression level (the dry cell weight of 18.7 g/L).

Conclusions

Taken together, we constructed an effective B. subtilis expression system by deleting multiple proteases and screening strong promoters. The dual-promoter P_amyL–P_spovG system was found to support superior expression of extracellular proteins in B. subtilis ATCC6051.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12934-018-1011-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The Goldilocks Approach: A Review of Employing Design of Experiments in Prokaryotic Recombinant Protein Production

The production of high yields of soluble recombinant protein is one of the main objectives of protein biotechnology. Several factors, such as expression system, vector, host, media composition and induction conditions can influence recombinant protein yield. Identifying the most important factors for optimum protein expression may involve significant investment of time and considerable cost. To address this problem, statistical models such as Design of Experiments (DoE) have been used to optimise recombinant protein production. This review examines the application of DoE in the production of recombinant proteins in prokaryotic expression systems with specific emphasis on media composition and culture conditions. The review examines the most commonly used DoE screening and optimisation designs. It provides examples of DoE applied to optimisation of media and culture conditions.

Production enhancement of the extracellular lipase LipA in Bacillus subtilis: Effects of expression system and Sec pathway components

Lipases are among the most versatile biocatalysts, and are used in a range of industrially relevant bioconversion reactions. However, the production of LipA in recombinant Bacillus subtilis is still limited, due to unresolved issues surrounding the regulation of the expression and secretion systems. In this study, the gene encoding LipA from B. subtilis 168 was expressed in BNA under the control of the P₄₃ and the P_AE promoter. The extracellular lipase activity of the resulting strains BNACL and BNAAL was 7.8 U ml^-1 and 12.6 U ml^-1, respectively. To further enhance the expression of LipA, pHP13L was constructed by inserting the P_AE-lip into the shuttle vector pHP13, which produced an extracellular lipase activity of 180.5 U ml^-1 of BNA/pHP13L. The strain BNAY8 described in Supplement data which lacks eight extracellular proteins was constructed and the deletion a few of the much weaker secreting proteins had no significant effect on the secretion of LipA. Moreover, the four Sec pathway components, secA-prfB, secDF, secYEG, prsA, were individually overexpressed in BNA. The overexpression of secDF and prsA enhanced the production of LipA by 28% and 49%, respectively. Furthermore, the co-overexpression of secDF with prsA improved the extracellular amount of LipA by 59% over that of BNA/pHP13L, reaching 287.8 U ml^-1. It can therefore be said that both regulatory elements and secretion pathway had an impact on the production of secreted LipA. Their optimization and modification is a useful strategy to improve the homologous overproduction of other extracellular proteins in B. subtilis.

A novel expression vector for the secretion of abaecin in Bacillus subtilis

This study aimed to describe a Bacillus subtilis expression system based on genetically modified B. subtilis. Abaecin, an antimicrobial peptide obtained from Apis mellifera, can enhance the effect of pore-forming peptides from other species on the inhibition of bacterial growth. For the exogenous expression, the abaecin gene was fused with a tobacco etch virus protease cleavage site, a promoter Pglv, and a mature beta-glucanase signal peptide. Also, a B. subtilis expression system was constructed. The recombinant abaecin gene was expressed and purified as a recombinant protein in the culture supernatant. The purified abaecin did not inhibit the growth of Escherichia coli strain K88. Cecropin A and hymenoptaecin exhibited potent bactericidal activities at concentrations of 1 and 1.5μM. Combinatorial assays revealed that cecropin A and hymenoptaecin had sublethal concentrations of 0.3 and 0.5μM. This potentiating functional interaction represents a promising therapeutic strategy. It provides an opportunity to address the rising threat of multidrug-resistant pathogens that are recalcitrant to conventional antibiotics.

Engineering of Escherichia coli to facilitate efficient utilization of isomaltose and panose in industrial glucose feedstock

Industrial glucose feedstock prepared by enzymatic digestion of starch typically contains significant amounts of disaccharides such as maltose and isomaltose and trisaccharides such as maltotriose and panose. Maltose and maltosaccharides can be utilized in Escherichia coli fermentation using industrial glucose feedstock because there is an intrinsic assimilation pathway for these sugars. However, saccharides that contain α-1,6 bonds, such as isomaltose and panose, are still present after fermentation because there is no metabolic pathway for these sugars. To facilitate more efficient utilization of glucose feedstock, we introduced glvA, which encodes phospho-α-glucosidase, and glvC, which encodes a subunit of the phosphoenolpyruvate-dependent maltose phosphotransferase system (PTS) of Bacillus subtilis, into E. coli. The heterologous expression of glvA and glvC conferred upon the recombinant the ability to assimilate isomaltose and panose. The recombinant E. coli assimilated not only other disaccharides but also trisaccharides, including alcohol forms of these saccharides, such as isomaltitol. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report to show the involvement of the microbial PTS in the assimilation of trisaccharides. Furthermore, we demonstrated that an L-lysine-producing E. coli harboring glvA and glvC converted isomaltose and panose to L-lysine efficiently. These findings are expected to be beneficial for industrial fermentation.