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Improvement of fatty acid biosynthesis by engineered recombinant Escherichia coli

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Abstract

The purpose of this research was to develop new strains of Escherichia coli with improved fatty acid biosynthesis. β-Ketoacyl acyl carrier protein synthase III (fabH) catalyzes the first step in the synthesis of fatty acids in parallel with acetyl-CoA carboxylase (accABC) and malonyl-CoA: acyl carrier protein transacylase (fabD) in Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655. The enzyme encoded by the fabH gene leads to an increase in the synthesis of short-chain-length fatty acids and a strong preference for acetyl-CoA, as it produces only straight chain fatty acids (SCFAs). It also seems to play a role in determining the type and composition of fatty acids produced. In this study, metabolically engineered strains of E. coli K-12 MG1655 containing fabH or accA::accBC::fabD or accA::accBC:: fabD::fabH gene-inserted expression vector (pTrc99A) were constructed. To observe the effects of overexpression, the production of malonic acid, a pathway intermediate, and fatty acids was analyzed. The resulting recombinant strains produced total lipids up to approximately 1.2 ∼ 1.6 fold higher than that of wild-type E. coli. The production of hexadecanoic acid was especially enhanced up to approximately 4.8 fold in E. coli SGJS13 as compared to E. coli SGJS11.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Sogang University, Seoul, 121-742, Korea

    Sunhee Lee, Eunyoung Jeon & Jinwon Lee

  2. Department of Biological Engineering, Inha University, Incheon, 402-751, Korea

    Hyun Shik Yun

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  1. Sunhee Lee
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  2. Eunyoung Jeon
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  3. Hyun Shik Yun
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  4. Jinwon Lee
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Correspondence to Jinwon Lee.

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Lee, S., Jeon, E., Yun, H.S. et al. Improvement of fatty acid biosynthesis by engineered recombinant Escherichia coli . Biotechnol Bioproc E 16, 706–713 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12257-011-0034-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12257-011-0034-6

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