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Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli to improve recombinant protein production

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Abstract

Escherichia coli is one of the most widely used strains for recombinant protein production. However, obstacles also exist in both academic researches and industrial applications, such as the metabolic burden, the carbon source waste, and the cells’ physiological deterioration. This article reviews recent approaches for improving recombinant protein production in metabolic engineering, including workhorse selection, stress factor application, and carbon flux regulation. Selecting a suitable host is the first key point for recombinant protein production. In general, it all depends on characteristics of the strains and the target proteins. It will be triggered cells physiological deterioration when the medium is significantly different from the cell’s natural environment. Coexpression of stress factors can help proteins to fold into their native conformation. Carbon flux regulation is a direct approach for redirecting more carbon flux toward the desirable pathways and products. However, some undesirable consequences are usually found in metabolic engineering, such as glucose transport inhibition, cell growth retardation, and useless metabolite accumulation. More efficient regulators and platform cell factories should be explored to meet a variety of production demands.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the100-Talent Project of CAS (to GZ), National 863 Program of China (SS2013AA050703-2), Taishan Scholars Climbing Program of Shandong (No. tspd20150210) and Key Program of CAS (KGZD-EW-606-1-3).

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Biobased Materials, Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266101, China

    Min Liu, Xinjun Feng, Guang Zhao, Huizhou Liu & Mo Xian

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Min Liu

  3. Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Yamei Ding

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  1. Min Liu
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  2. Xinjun Feng
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Correspondence to Huizhou Liu or Mo Xian.

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Liu, M., Feng, X., Ding, Y. et al. Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli to improve recombinant protein production. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 99, 10367–10377 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6955-9

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