Role of phosphoenolpyruvate in the NADP-isocitrate dehydrogenase and isocitrate lyase reaction in Escherichia coli

Engineering the glyoxylate cycle for chemical bioproduction

With growing concerns about environmental issues and sustainable economy, bioproduction of chemicals utilizing microbial cell factories provides an eco-friendly alternative to current petro-based processes. Creating high-performance strains (with high titer, yield, and productivity) through metabolic engineering strategies is critical for cost-competitive production. Commonly, it is inevitable to fine-tuning or rewire the endogenous or heterologous pathways in such processes. As an important pathway involved in the synthesis of many kinds of chemicals, the potential of the glyoxylate cycle in metabolic engineering has been studied extensively these years. Here, we review the metabolic regulation of the glyoxylate cycle and summarize recent achievements in microbial production of chemicals through tuning of the glyoxylate cycle, with a focus on studies implemented in model microorganisms. Also, future prospects for bioproduction of glyoxylate cycle-related chemicals are discussed.

Quantitative metabolomics for dynamic metabolic engineering using stable isotope labeled internal standards mixture (SILIS)

The production of chemicals and fuels from renewable resources using engineered microbes is an attractive alternative for current fossil-dependent industries. Metabolic engineering has contributed to pathway engineering for the production of chemicals and fuels by various microorganisms. Recently, dynamic metabolic engineering harnessing synthetic biological tools has become a next-generation strategy in this field. The dynamic regulation of metabolic flux during fermentation optimizes metabolic states according to each fermentation stage such as cell growth phase and compound production phase. However, it is necessary to repeat the evaluation and redesign of the dynamic regulation system to achieve the practical use of engineered microbes. In this study, we performed quantitative metabolome analysis to investigate the effects of dynamic metabolic flux regulation on engineered Escherichia coli for γ-amino butyrate (GABA) fermentation. We prepared a stable isotope-labeled internal standard mixture (SILIS) for the stable isotope dilution method (SIDM), a mass spectrometry-based quantitative metabolome analysis method. We found multiple candidate bottlenecks for GABA production. Some metabolic reactions in the GABA production pathway should be engineered for further improvement in the direct GABA fermentation with dynamic metabolic engineering strategy.

Multiple strategies for metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli for efficient production of glycolate

Glycolate is a bulk chemical with wide applications in the textile, food processing, and pharmaceutical industries. Glycolate can be produced from glucose via the glycolysis and glyoxylate shunt pathways, followed by reduction to glycolate. However, two problems limit the productivity and yield of glycolate when using glucose as the sole carbon source. The first is a cofactor imbalance in the production of glycolate from glucose via the glycolysis pathway, since NADPH is required for glycolate production, while glycolysis generates NADH. To rectify this imbalance, the NADP⁺ -dependent glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase GapC from Clostridium acetobutylicum was introduced to generate NADPH instead of NADH in the oxidation of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate during glycolysis. The soluble transhydrogenase SthA was further eliminated to conserve NADPH by blocking its conversion into NADH. The second problem is an unfavorable carbon flux distribution between the tricarboxylic acid cycle and the glyoxylate shunt. To solve this problem, isocitrate dehydrogenase (ICDH) was eliminated to increase the carbon flux of glyoxylate and thereby improve the glycolate titer. After engineering through the integration of gapC, combined with the inactivation of ICDH, SthA, and by-product pathways, as well as the upregulation of the two key enzymes isocitrate lyase (encoding by aceA), and glyoxylate reductase (encoding by ycdW), the glycolate titer increased to 5.3 g/L with a yield of 1.89 mol/mol glucose. Moreover, an optimized fed-batch fermentation reached a titer of 41 g/L with a yield of 1.87 mol/mol glucose after 60 h.

Toward a genome scale sequence specific dynamic model of cell-free protein synthesis in Escherichia coli

In this study, we developed a dynamic mathematical model of E. coli cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS). Model parameters were estimated from a dataset consisting of glucose, organic acids, energy species, amino acids, and protein product, chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) measurements. The model was successfully trained to simulate these measurements, especially those of the central carbon metabolism. We then used the trained model to evaluate the performance, e.g., the yield and rates of protein production. CAT was produced with an energy efficiency of 12%, suggesting that the process could be further optimized. Reaction group knockouts showed that protein productivity was most sensitive to the oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis/gluconeogenesis pathways. Amino acid biosynthesis was also important for productivity, while overflow metabolism and TCA cycle affected the overall system state. In addition, translation was more important to productivity than transcription. Finally, CAT production was robust to allosteric control, as were most of the predicted metabolite concentrations; the exceptions to this were the concentrations of succinate and malate, and to a lesser extent pyruvate and acetate, which varied from the measured values when allosteric control was removed. This study is the first to use kinetic modeling to predict dynamic protein production in a cell-free E. coli system, and could provide a foundation for genome scale, dynamic modeling of cell-free E. coli protein synthesis.

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Protein production is biphasic, powered initially by glucose and later by pyruvate.

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Protein is produced with an energy efficiency of only 12%.

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Protein productivity is most sensitive to oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis.

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Protein production is robust to allosteric control.

Metabolomics-Driven Exploration of the Chemical Drug Space to Predict Combination Antimicrobial Therapies

Alternative to the conventional search for single-target, single-compound treatments, combination therapies can open entirely new opportunities to fight antibiotic resistance. However, combinatorial complexity prohibits experimental testing of drug combinations on a large scale, and methods to rationally design combination therapies are lagging behind. Here, we developed a combined experimental-computational approach to predict drug-drug interactions using high-throughput metabolomics. The approach was tested on 1,279 pharmacologically diverse drugs applied to the gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli. Combining our metabolic profiling of drug response with previously generated metabolic and chemogenomic profiles of 3,807 single-gene deletion strains revealed an unexpectedly large space of inhibited gene functions and enabled rational design of drug combinations. This approach is applicable to other therapeutic areas and can unveil unprecedented insights into drug tolerance, side effects, and repurposing. The compendium of drug-associated metabolome profiles is available at https://zampierigroup.shinyapps.io/EcoPrestMet, providing a valuable resource for the microbiological and pharmacological communities.

The Glyoxylate Shunt, 60 Years On

2017 marks the 60th anniversary of Krebs’ seminal paper on the glyoxylate shunt (and coincidentally, also the 80th anniversary of his discovery of the citric acid cycle). Sixty years on, we have witnessed substantial developments in our understanding of how flux is partitioned between the glyoxylate shunt and the oxidative decarboxylation steps of the citric acid cycle. The last decade has shown us that the beautifully elegant textbook mechanism that regulates carbon flux through the shunt in E. coli is an oversimplification of the situation in many other bacteria. The aim of this review is to assess how this new knowledge is impacting our understanding of flux control at the TCA cycle/glyoxylate shunt branch point in a wider range of genera, and to summarize recent findings implicating a role for the glyoxylate shunt in cellular functions other than metabolism.

Identification of osmoadaptive strategies in the halophile, heterotrophic ciliate Schmidingerothrix salinarum

Hypersaline environments pose major challenges to their microbial residents. Microorganisms have to cope with increased osmotic pressure and low water activity and therefore require specific adaptation mechanisms. Although mechanisms have already been thoroughly investigated in the green alga Dunaliella salina and some halophilic yeasts, strategies for osmoadaptation in other protistan groups (especially heterotrophs) are neither as well known nor as deeply investigated as for their prokaryotic counterpart. This is not only due to the recent awareness of the high protistan diversity and ecological relevance in hypersaline systems, but also due to methodological shortcomings. We provide the first experimental study on haloadaptation in heterotrophic microeukaryotes, using the halophilic ciliate Schmidingerothrix salinarum as a model organism. We established three approaches to investigate fundamental adaptation strategies known from prokaryotes. First, proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy was used for the detection, identification, and quantification of intracellular compatible solutes. Second, ion-imaging with cation-specific fluorescent dyes was employed to analyze changes in the relative ion concentrations in intact cells. Third, the effect of salt concentrations on the catalytic performance of S. salinarum malate dehydrogenase (MDH) and isocitrate dehydrogenase (ICDH) was determined. 1H-NMR spectroscopy identified glycine betaine (GB) and ectoine (Ect) as the main compatible solutes in S. salinarum. Moreover, a significant positive correlation of intracellular GB and Ect concentrations and external salinity was observed. The addition of exogenous GB, Ect, and choline (Ch) stimulated the cell growth notably, indicating that S. salinarum accumulates the solutes from the external medium. Addition of external 13C2-Ch resulted in conversion to 13C2-GB, indicating biosynthesis of GB from Ch. An increase of external salinity up to 21% did not result in an increase in cytoplasmic sodium concentration in S. salinarum. This, together with the decrease in the catalytic activities of MDH and ICDH at high salt concentration, demonstrates that S. salinarum employs the salt-out strategy for haloadaptation.

The synthetic xylulose-1 phosphate pathway increases production of glycolic acid from xylose-rich sugar mixtures

BACKGROUND

Glycolic acid (GA) is a two-carbon hydroxyacid with applications in the cosmetic, textile, and medical industry. Microbial GA production from all sugars can be achieved by engineering the natural glyoxylate shunt. The synthetic (d)-xylulose-1 phosphate (X1P) pathway provides a complementary route to produce GA from (d)-xylose. The simultaneous operation of the X1P and glyoxylate pathways increases the theoretical GA yield from xylose by 20 %, which may strongly improve GA production from hemicellulosic hydrolysates.

RESULTS

We herein describe the construction of an E. coli strain that produces GA via the glyoxylate pathway at a yield of 0.31 , 0.29 , and 0.37 g/g from glucose, xylose, or a mixture of glucose and xylose (mass ratio: 33:66 %), respectively. When the X1P pathway operates in addition to the glyoxylate pathway, the GA yields on the three substrates are, respectively, 0.39 , 0.43 , and 0.47 g/g. Upon constitutive expression of the sugar permease GalP, the GA yield of the strain which simultaneously operates the glyoxylate and X1P pathways further increases to 0.63 g/g when growing on the glucose/xylose mixture. Under these conditions, the GA yield on the xylose fraction of the sugar mixture reaches 0.75 g/g, which is the highest yield reported to date.

CONCLUSIONS

These results demonstrate that the synthetic X1P pathway has a very strong potential to improve GA production from xylose-rich hemicellulosic hydrolysates.

Central Role of Pyruvate Kinase in Carbon Co-catabolism of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) displays a high degree of metabolic plasticity to adapt to challenging host environments. Genetic evidence suggests thatMtbrelies mainly on fatty acid catabolism in the host. However,Mtbalso maintains a functional glycolytic pathway and its role in the cellular metabolism ofMtbhas yet to be understood. Pyruvate kinase catalyzes the last and rate-limiting step in glycolysis and theMtbgenome harbors one putative pyruvate kinase (pykA, Rv1617). Here we show thatpykAencodes an active pyruvate kinase that is allosterically activated by glucose 6-phosphate (Glc-6-P) and adenosine monophosphate (AMP). Deletion ofpykApreventsMtbgrowth in the presence of fermentable carbon sources and has a cidal effect in the presence of glucose that correlates with elevated levels of the toxic catabolite methylglyoxal. Growth attenuation was also observed in media containing a combination of short chain fatty acids and glucose and surprisingly, in media containing odd and even chain fatty acids alone. Untargeted high sensitivity metabolomics revealed that inactivation of pyruvate kinase leads to accumulation of phosphoenolpyruvate (P-enolpyruvate), citrate, and aconitate, which was consistent with allosteric inhibition of isocitrate dehydrogenase by P-enolpyruvate. This metabolic block could be relieved by addition of the α-ketoglutarate precursor glutamate. Taken together, our study identifies an essential role of pyruvate kinase in preventing metabolic block during carbon co-catabolism inMtb.

Integrating Kinetic Model of E. coli with Genome Scale Metabolic Fluxes Overcomes Its Open System Problem and Reveals Bistability in Central Metabolism

An understanding of the dynamics of the metabolic profile of a bacterial cell is sought from a dynamical systems analysis of kinetic models. This modelling formalism relies on a deterministic mathematical description of enzyme kinetics and their metabolite regulation. However, it is severely impeded by the lack of available kinetic information, limiting the size of the system that can be modelled. Furthermore, the subsystem of the metabolic network whose dynamics can be modelled is faced with three problems: how to parameterize the model with mostly incomplete steady state data, how to close what is now an inherently open system, and how to account for the impact on growth. In this study we address these challenges of kinetic modelling by capitalizing on multi-‘omics’ steady state data and a genome-scale metabolic network model. We use these to generate parameters that integrate knowledge embedded in the genome-scale metabolic network model, into the most comprehensive kinetic model of the central carbon metabolism of E. coli realized to date. As an application, we performed a dynamical systems analysis of the resulting enriched model. This revealed bistability of the central carbon metabolism and thus its potential to express two distinct metabolic states. Furthermore, since our model-informing technique ensures both stable states are constrained by the same thermodynamically feasible steady state growth rate, the ensuing bistability represents a temporal coexistence of the two states, and by extension, reveals the emergence of a phenotypically heterogeneous population.

NADPH-generating systems in bacteria and archaea

Reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) is an essential electron donor in all organisms. It provides the reducing power that drives numerous anabolic reactions, including those responsible for the biosynthesis of all major cell components and many products in biotechnology. The efficient synthesis of many of these products, however, is limited by the rate of NADPH regeneration. Hence, a thorough understanding of the reactions involved in the generation of NADPH is required to increase its turnover through rational strain improvement. Traditionally, the main engineering targets for increasing NADPH availability have included the dehydrogenase reactions of the oxidative pentose phosphate pathway and the isocitrate dehydrogenase step of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. However, the importance of alternative NADPH-generating reactions has recently become evident. In the current review, the major canonical and non-canonical reactions involved in the production and regeneration of NADPH in prokaryotes are described, and their key enzymes are discussed. In addition, an overview of how different enzymes have been applied to increase NADPH availability and thereby enhance productivity is provided.

Succinate Overproduction: A Case Study of Computational Strain Design Using a Comprehensive Escherichia coli Kinetic Model

Computational strain-design prediction accuracy has been the focus for many recent efforts through the selective integration of kinetic information into metabolic models. In general, kinetic model prediction quality is determined by the range and scope of genetic and/or environmental perturbations used during parameterization. In this effort, we apply the k-OptForce procedure on a kinetic model of E. coli core metabolism constructed using the Ensemble Modeling (EM) method and parameterized using multiple mutant strains data under aerobic respiration with glucose as the carbon source. Minimal interventions are identified that improve succinate yield under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions to test the fidelity of model predictions under both genetic and environmental perturbations. Under aerobic condition, k-OptForce identifies interventions that match existing experimental strategies while pointing at a number of unexplored flux re-directions such as routing glyoxylate flux through the glycerate metabolism to improve succinate yield. Many of the identified interventions rely on the kinetic descriptions that would not be discoverable by a purely stoichiometric description. In contrast, under fermentative (anaerobic) condition, k-OptForce fails to identify key interventions including up-regulation of anaplerotic reactions and elimination of competitive fermentative products. This is due to the fact that the pathways activated under anaerobic condition were not properly parameterized as only aerobic flux data were used in the model construction. This study shed light on the importance of condition-specific model parameterization and provides insight on how to augment kinetic models so as to correctly respond to multiple environmental perturbations.

Directed pathway evolution of the glyoxylate shunt in Escherichia coli for improved aerobic succinate production from glycerol

α-Ketoglutarate is accumulated as the main byproduct during the aerobic succinate production from glycerol by Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) in minimal medium. To address this issue, here a strategy of directed pathway evolution was developed to enhance the alternative succinate production route-the glyoxylate shunt. Via the directed pathway evolution, the glyoxylate shunt was recruited as the primary anaplerotic pathway in a ppc mutant, which restored its viability in glycerol minimal medium. Subsequently, the operon sdhCDAB was deleted and the gene ppc was reverted in the evolved strain for succinate production. The resulting strain E2-Δsdh-ppc produced 30 % more succinate and 46 % less α-ketoglutarate than the control strain. A G583T mutation in gene icdA, which significantly decreased the activity of isocitrate dehydrogenase, was identified in the evolved strain as the main mutation responsible for the observed phenotype. Overexpression of α-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase complex in E2-Δsdh-ppc further reduced the amount of byproduct and improved succinate production. The final strain E2-Δsdh-ppc-sucAB produced 366 mM succinate from 1.3 M glycerol in minimal medium in fed-batch fermentation. The maximum and average succinate volumetric productivities were 19.2 and 6.55 mM h(-1), respectively, exhibiting potential industrial production capacity from the low-priced substrate.

Cloning, expression and characterization of NADP-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase from Staphylococcus aureus

The Krebs cycle dictates oxidative and reductive conditions in Staphylococcus aureus and is mainly regulated by isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) which plays pivotal role in the growth and pathogenesis of the bacteria. In the present study, IDH gene from S. aureus ATCC12600 was cloned in the Sma I site of pQE 30 vector; the resultant clone was named as UVIDH1. The insert in the clone was sequenced (accession number HM067707), and the sequence showed complete homology with IDH sequence of other S. aureus strains reported in the database indicating presence of single enzyme in S. aureus, and considerable sequence homology with other bacteria was observed; however, only 24% homology was found with NADP-dependent human IDH. Phylogenetically, the S. aureus IDH showed close identity with Bacillus subtilis and high degree of variability with other bacteria and human IDH. The expression of IDH in the clone UVIDH1 was induced with 1 mM IPTG, and the recombinant IDH was purified by passing through nickel metal chelate column; the purified recombinant IDH showed a single band in SDS-PAGE with a molecular weight of 40 kDa; K(m) and V(max) for isocitrate are 8.2 ± 0.28 and 525 ± 25 μM NADPH/mg/min, respectively, and for cofactor NADP 67.5 ± 2.82 μM and V(max) 50.5 ± 2.12 μM NADPH/mg/min.