Mutant rnase e for enhancing recombinant protein expression

The invention provides a microbial host cell for enhanced recombinant expression of a target protein, said host cell comprising a mutant RNase E enzyme to be coexpressed with a target gene of interest. The invention further provides a method of enhancing recombinant protein expression using said microbial host cell. The method is particularly useful for the expression of proteins that are otherwise difficult to express in traditional expression systems, such as proteins which are toxic to the host cell. The invention further provides an auxiliary plasmid comprising a rne* gene encoding a mutant RNase E enzyme and a LysS gene encoding T7 lysozyme.