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Engineering Photosynthetic α-Proteobacteria for the Production of Recombinant Proteins and Terpenoids

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Modern Topics in the Phototrophic Prokaryotes

Abstract

Phototrophic non-sulfur purple α-proteobacteria are able to harvest sunlight and to fix atmospheric carbon dioxide and dinitrogen. Consequently, these microbes are used as model organisms for the investigation of regulation and activity of the photosynthesis complexes, the ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) as well as the nitrogenase and hydrogenase enzyme complexes. In addition, this group of prokaryotic phototrophs has emerged as microbial production chassis for the synthesis of recombinant proteins and natural products. To this end, a versatile set of different expression tools has been developed allowing the functional expression of single genes as well as the transfer of complete metabolic pathways. This review provides an overview of different strategies to engineer photosynthetic α-proteobacteria, especially the two most commonly employed representatives Rhodobacter capsulatus and Rhodobacter sphaeroides, for the production of difficult-to-express proteins and terpenoids. Unique physiological properties of these alternative production hosts are discussed in the context of respective production processes. Furthermore, synthetic biology tools applicable for heterologous gene expression and establishment of combinatorial biosynthetic pathways in phototrophic α-proteobacteria are described. Finally, the potential of phototrophic bacteria in future bioeconomic production routes is briefly discussed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    According to Stephen White, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine, University of California at Irvine: http://blanco.biomol.uci.edu/mpstruc/, October 10th, 2016.

  2. 2.

    According to Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB) Protein Data Bank (PDB) statistics: http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/statistics/holdings.do, October 10th, 2016.

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Acknowledgements

Research in the authors’ laboratories is supported by the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia MIWF (Research and Technology Platform ExpressO, NRW Strategieprojekt BioSC), the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research BMBF (ExpresSys, HT-ENZ), and the German Research Foundation DFG (Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences CEPLAS). Further, the authors would like to thank Anita Loeschcke, Stephan Thies, and Karl-Erich Jaeger for the critical revision of the manuscript.

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  1. Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, IBG-1: Biotechnology, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425, Jülich, Germany

    Achim Heck

  2. Institute of Molecular Enzyme Technology, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425, Jülich, Germany

    Thomas Drepper

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Correspondence to Thomas Drepper .

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  1. Department of Biology Life Sciences Research Center, United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

    Patrick C. Hallenbeck

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Heck, A., Drepper, T. (2017). Engineering Photosynthetic α-Proteobacteria for the Production of Recombinant Proteins and Terpenoids. In: Hallenbeck, P. (eds) Modern Topics in the Phototrophic Prokaryotes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46261-5_12

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