Acetate overflow metabolism regulates a major metabolic shift after glucose depletion in Escherichia coli

Acetate overflow refers to the metabolism by which a large part of carbon incorporated as glucose into Escherichia coli cells is catabolized and excreted as acetate into the medium. We previously found that mutants for the acetate overflow pathway enzymes phosphoacetyltransferase (Pta) and acetate kinase (AckA) showed significant diauxic growth after glucose depletion in E. coli. Here, we analyzed the underlying mechanism in the pta mutant. Proteomic and other analyses revealed an increase in pyruvate dehydrogenase complex subunits and a decrease in glyoxylate shunt enzymes, which resulted from pyruvate accumulation. Since restoration of these enzyme levels by overexpressing PdhR (pyruvate-sensing transcription factor) or deleting iclR (gene encoding a pyruvate- and glyoxylate-sensing transcription factor) alleviated the growth lag of the pta mutant after glucose depletion, these changes were considered as the reason for the phenotype. Given the evidence for decreased coenzyme A (HS-CoA) levels in the pta mutant, the growth inhibition after glucose depletion was partly explained by limited availability of HS-CoA in the cell. The findings provide insights into the role of acetate overflow in metabolic regulation, which may be useful for biotechnological applications.

13C-Metabolic Flux Analysis Reveals Effect of Phenol on Central Carbon Metabolism in Escherichia coli

Phenol is an important chemical product that can be used in a wide variety of applications, and it is currently produced from fossil resources. Fermentation production of phenol from renewable biomass resources by microorganisms is highly desirable for sustainable development. However, phenol toxicity hampers phenol production in industrial microorganisms such as Escherichia coli. In the present study, it was revealed that culturing E. coli in the presence of phenol not only decreased growth rate, but also biomass yield. This suggests that phenol affects the carbon flow of the metabolism, but the mechanism is unknown. To investigate the effect of phenol on the flux distribution of central carbon metabolism, ¹³C-metabolic flux analysis (¹³C-MFA) was performed on cells grown under different phenol concentrations (0, 0.1, and 0.15%). ¹³C-MFA revealed that the TCA cycle flux reduced by 25% increased acetate production from acetyl-CoA by 30% in the presence of 0.1% phenol. This trend of flux changes was emphasized at a phenol concentration of 0.15%. Although the expression level of citrate synthase, which catalyzes the first reaction of the TCA cycle, does not change regardless of phenol concentrations, the in vitro enzyme activity assay shows that the reaction was inhibited by phenol. These results suggest that the TCA cycle flux decreased due to phenol inhibition of citrate synthase; therefore, ATP could not be sufficiently produced by respiration, and growth rate decreased. Furthermore, since carbon was lost as acetate due to overflow metabolism, the biomass yield became low in the presence of phenol.