Increased expression of pyruvate carboxylase and biotin protein ligase increases lysine production in a biotin prototrophic Corynebacterium glutamicum strain

Zhihao Wang, Soloomeh Moslehi-Jenabian, Christian Solem, Peter Ruhdal Jensen

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

Corynebacterium glutamicum, a Gram-positive bacterium used for the production of various biochemicals, is naturally a biotin auxotroph. We introduced the biotin genes from Bacillus subtilis on a plasmid, pBIO, into a lysine-producing derivative (termed AHP-3) that has been described previously, and achieved biotin prototrophy. We found that AHP-3, containing pBIO, was able to produce lysine in a medium lacking biotin and that the lysine yield on glucose was similar to what is obtained when using a medium containing biotin. However, there was a decrease in specific growth rate of 20% when the strain was cultivated without biotin, indicating a suboptimal intracellular concentration of biotin. In an attempt to locate the potential bottleneck, we added pimelic acid, an early biotin precursor, and found that growth rate could be restored fully, which demonstrates that the bottleneck is in pimeloyl-CoA (or pimeloyl-Acyl Carrier Protein [ACP]) formation. Pyruvate carboxylase (pycA), a biotin-dependent enzyme needed for lysine biosynthesis and biotin ligase (birA), which is responsible for attaching biotin to pyruvate carboxylase, were overexpressed by replacing the native promoters with the strong superoxide dismutase (sod) promoter, to see whether growth could be restored. Neither pycA nor birA overexpression, whether alone or in combination, had an effect on specific growth rate, but they did have a positive effect on lysine yield, which increased by 55% in the strain overexpressing both enzymes.
Original languageEnglish
JournalEngineering in Life Sciences (Online)
Volume15
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)73–82
Number of pages10
ISSN1618-2863
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Keywords

  • Biotin protein ligase
  • Corynebacterium glotamicum
  • Lysine
  • Metabolic optimization
  • Pyruvate carboxylase

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Increased expression of pyruvate carboxylase and biotin protein ligase increases lysine production in a biotin prototrophic Corynebacterium glutamicum strain'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this