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Metabolic analysis of Schizochytrium sp. mutants with high EPA content achieved with ARTP mutagenesis screening

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Abstract

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) belonged to the ω-3 series of polyunsaturated fatty acids and had physiological functions lipid as regulating blood lipid and preventing cardiovascular diseases. Schizochytrium sp. was considered to be a potential industrial fermentation strain of EPA because of its fast growth, high oil content, and simple fatty acid composition. However, Schizochytrium sp. produced EPA with low production efficiency and a long synthesis path. This research aims to improve the yield of EPA in Schizochytrium sp. by ARTP mutagenesis and to reveal the mechanism of high-yield EPA through transcriptome analysis. ARTP mutagenesis screening yielded the mutant M12 that whereas the productivity of EPA increased 108% reaching 0.48 g/L, the total fatty acid concentration was 13.82 g/L with an increase of 13.7%. The transcriptomics revealed 2995 differentially expressed genes were identified between M12 and the wild-type strain and transcripts involved in carbohydrate, amino acid, energy, and lipid metabolism were up-regulated. Among them, the hexokinase (HK) and the phosphofructokinase genes (PFK), which can catalyze pyruvate to acetyl-CoA, were increased 2.23-fold and 1.78-fold. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) and glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH), which can both generate NADPH, were increased by 1.67-fold and 3.11-fold. Furthermore, in the EPA synthesis module, the expression of 3-oxoacyl-[acyl-carrier protein] reductase(fabG) and carbonyl reductase 4 / 3-oxoacyl-[acyl-carrier protein] reductase beta subunit(CBR4), also up-regulated 1.11-fold and 2.67-fold. These may lead to increases in cell growth. The results provide an important reference for further research on promoting fatty acid and EPA accumulation in Schizochytrium sp.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22208167).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Food Science and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210023, People’s Republic of China

    Xinyu Wei, Yuzhou Wang, Xiner Liu, Zijian Hu, Jinyi Qian, Tianqiong Shi, Yuetong Wang & Chao Ye

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  1. Xinyu Wei
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  2. Yuzhou Wang
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  3. Xiner Liu
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  8. Chao Ye
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Contributions

XW and CY contributed to the design and implementation of the research, to the analysis of the results, and to the writing of the manuscript. XW, XL, and YW performed experiments and collected the data; XW and ZH analyzed and discussed the data. JQ, TS, and YW conceived the conception of the presented idea and planned the experiments. All authors participated in writing, reviewing, and editing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chao Ye.

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Wei, X., Wang, Y., Liu, X. et al. Metabolic analysis of Schizochytrium sp. mutants with high EPA content achieved with ARTP mutagenesis screening. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 46, 893–901 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-023-02874-5

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