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5-Aminolevulinic acid production from inexpensive glucose by engineering the C4 pathway in Escherichia coli

  • Metabolic Engineering and Synthetic Biology - Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

5-Aminolevulinic acid (ALA), the first committed intermediate for natural biosynthesis of tetrapyrrole compounds, has recently drawn intensive attention due to its broad potential applications. In this study, we describe the construction of recombinant Escherichia coli strains for ALA production from glucose via the C4 pathway. The hemA gene from Rhodobacter capsulatus was optimally overexpressed using a ribosome binding site engineering strategy, which enhanced ALA production substantially from 20 to 689 mg/L. Following optimization of biosynthesis pathways towards coenzyme A and precursor (glycine and succinyl-CoA), and downregulation of hemB expression, the production of ALA was further increased to 2.81 g/L in batch-fermentation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31670092), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20141107), a grant from the Key Technologies R&D Program of Jiangsu Province, China (BE2014607) and Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (No. IRT_15R26).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Key Laboratory of Industrial Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, 214122, People’s Republic of China

    Wenwen Ding, Huanjiao Weng, Guocheng Du, Jian Chen & Zhen Kang

  2. Synergetic Innovation Center of Food Safety and Nutrition, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, Jiangsu, 214122, China

    Wenwen Ding, Huanjiao Weng, Guocheng Du, Jian Chen & Zhen Kang

  3. The Key Laboratory of Carbohydrate Chemistry and Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, 214122, People’s Republic of China

    Zhen Kang

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  1. Wenwen Ding
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  2. Huanjiao Weng
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  3. Guocheng Du
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  4. Jian Chen
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  5. Zhen Kang
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Correspondence to Zhen Kang.

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Ding, W., Weng, H., Du, G. et al. 5-Aminolevulinic acid production from inexpensive glucose by engineering the C4 pathway in Escherichia coli . J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 44, 1127–1135 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-017-1940-1

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