Abstract
In the application of engineered Escherichia coli in industrial polyhydroxybutyrate production process, one of the major concerns is the induction of the metabolic pathway. In this study, we developed a stress-induced system by which the PHB biosynthesis pathways can be induced under stress conditions. Fermentation results showed that recombinant E. coli DH5α (pQKZ103) harboring this system was able to accumulate polyhydroxybutyrate up to 85.8% of cell dry weight in minimal glucose medium without adding any inducer. Growth experiment with GFP as a reporter indicated that the induction of this system happened at the late exponential phase and was sensitive to stressed environment. This system can also be applied in many other biotechnological processes.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahn WS, Park SJ, Lee SY (2000) Production of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) by fed-batch culture of recombinant Escherichia coli with a highly concentrated whey solution. Appl Environ Microbiol 66:3624–3627
Aldor IS, Keasling JD (2003) Process design for microbial plastic factories: metabolic engineering of polyhydroxyalkanoates. Curr Opin Biotechnol 14:475–483
Anderson AJ, Dawes EA (1990) Occurrence, metabolism, metabolic role, and industrial uses of bacterial polyhydroxyalkanoates. Microbiol Rev 54:450–472
Beshay U, Miksch G, Friehs K, Flaschel E (2007) Increasing the secretion ability of the kil gene for recombinant proteins in Escherichia coli by using a strong stationary-phase promoter. Biotechnol Lett 29:1893–1901
Brown L, Elliott T (1997) Mutations that increase expression of the rpoS gene and decrease its dependence on hfq function in Salmonella typhimurium. J Bacteriol 179:656–662
Choi J, Lee SY (1999) Efficient and economical recovery of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) from recombinant Escherichia coli by simple digestion with chemicals. Biotechnol Bioeng 62:546–553
Fidler S, Dennis D (1992) Polyhydroxyalkanoate production in recombinant Escherichia coli. FEMS Microbiol Rev 9:231–235
Fischer D, Teich A, Neubauer P, Hengge-Aronis R (1998) The general stress sigma factor sigmaS of Escherichia coli is induced during diauxic shift from glucose to lactose. J Bacteriol 180:6203–6206
Hengge-Aronis R (1999) Interplay of global regulators and cell physiology in the general stress response of Escherichia coli. Curr Opin Microbiol 2:148–152
Hengge-Aronis R (2002) Signal transduction and regulatory mechanisms involved in control of the sigma (S) (RpoS) subunit of RNA polymerase. Microbiol Mol Biol Rev 66:373–395
Hirsch M, Elliott T (2005) Stationary-phase regulation of RpoS translation in Escherichia coli. J Bacteriol 187:7204–7213
Jorgensen F, Bally M, Chapon-Herve V, Michel G, Lazdunski A, Williams P, Stewart GS (1999) RpoS-dependent stress tolerance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Microbiology 145(Pt 4):835–844
Lange R, Hengge-Aronis R (1994) The cellular concentration of the sigma S subunit of RNA polymerase in Escherichia coli is controlled at the levels of transcription, translation, and protein stability. Genes Dev 8:1600–1612
Lease RA, Belfort M (2000) Riboregulation by DsrA RNA: trans-actions for global economy. Mol Microbiol 38:667–672
Lease RA, Smith D, McDonough K, Belfort M (2004) The small noncoding DsrA RNA is an acid resistance regulator in Escherichia coli. J Bacteriol 186:6179–6185
Lease RA, Woodson SA (2004) Cycling of the Sm-like protein Hfq on the DsrA small regulatory RNA. J Mol Biol 344:1211–1223
Lee SY (1996) Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) extrusion by cells of recombinant Escherichia coli. J Microbiol Biotechnol 6:147–149
Lee SY, Yim KS, Chang HN, Chang YK (1994) Construction of plasmids, estimation of plasmid stability, and use of stable plasmids for the production of poly(3-hydroxybutyric acid) by recombinant Escherichia coli. J Biotechnol 32:203–211
Li R, Chen Q, Wang PG, Qi Q (2007a) A novel-designed Escherichia coli for the production of various polyhydroxyalkanoates from inexpensive substrate mixture. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 75:1103–1109
Li R, Zhang H, Qi Q (2007b) The production of polyhydroxyalkanoates in recombinant Escherichia coli. Bioresour Technol 98:2313–2320
Madison LL, Huisman GW (1999) Metabolic engineering of poly(3-hydroxyalkanoates): from DNA to plastic. Microbiol Mol Biol Rev 63:21–53
Majdalani N, Cunning C, Sledjeski D, Elliott T, Gottesman S (1998) DsrA RNA regulates translation of RpoS message by an anti-antisense mechanism, independent of its action as an antisilencer of transcription. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 95:12462–12467
Miksch G, Bettenworth F, Friehs K, Flaschel E, Saalbach A, Twellmann T, Nattkemper TW (2005) Libraries of synthetic stationary-phase and stress promoters as a tool for fine-tuning of expression of recombinant proteins in Escherichia coli. J Biotechnol 120:25–37
Mnaimneh S, Davierwala AP, Haynes J, Moffat J, Peng WT, Zhang W, Yang X, Pootoolal J, Chua G, Lopez A et al (2004) Exploration of essential gene functions via titratable promoter alleles. Cell 118:31–44
Muffler A, Barth M, Marschall C, Hengge-Aronis R (1997) Heat shock regulation of sigmaS turnover: a role for DnaK and relationship between stress responses mediated by sigmaS and sigma32 in Escherichia coli. J Bacteriol 179:445–452
Ranquet C, Gottesman S (2007) Translational regulation of the Escherichia coli stress factor RpoS: a role for SsrA and Lon. J Bacteriol 189:4872–4879
Repoila F, Majdalani N, Gottesman S (2003) Small non-coding RNAs, co-ordinators of adaptation processes in Escherichia coli: the RpoS paradigm. Mol Microbiol 48:855–861
Resch A, Afonyushkin T, Lombo TB, McDowall KJ, Blasi U, Kaberdin VR (2008) Translational activation by the noncoding RNA DsrA involves alternative RNase III processing in the rpoS 5′-leader. RNA 14:1–6
Sambrook J, Fritsch EF, Maniatis T (1989) Molecular Cloning:a Laboratory Manual, 2nd edn. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
Sharfstein ST, Van Dien SJ, Keasling JD (1996) Modulation of the phosphate-starvation response in Escherichia coli by genetic manipulation of the polyphosphate pathways. Biotechnol Bioeng 51:434–438
Shi H, Kyuwa K, Takasu M, Shimizu K (2001) Temperature-induced expression of phb genes in Escherichia coli and the effect of temperature patterns on the production of poly-3-hydroxybutyrate. J Biosci Bioeng 91:21–26
Siegele DA, Hu JC (1997) Gene expression from plasmids containing the araBAD promoter at subsaturating inducer concentrations represents mixed populations. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 94:8168–8172
Spiekermann P, Rehm BH, Kalscheuer R, Baumeister D, Steinbüchel A (1999) A sensitive, viable-colony staining method using Nile red for direct screening of bacteria that accumulate polyhydroxyalkanoic acids and other lipid storage compounds. Arch Microbiol 171:73–80
Steinbüchel A, Füchtenbusch B (1998) Bacterial and other biological systems for polyester production. Trends Biotechnol 16:419–427
Suriyamongkol P, Weselake R, Narine S, Moloney M, Shah S (2007) Biotechnological approaches for the production of polyhydroxyalkanoates in microorganisms and plants—a review. Biotechnol Adv 25:148–175
Taschner NP, Yagil E, Spira B (2004) A differential effect of sigmaS on the expression of the PHO regulon genes of Escherichia coli. Microbiology 150:2985–2992
Valentin-Hansen P, Eriksen M, Udesen C (2004) The bacterial Sm-like protein Hfq: a key player in RNA transactions. Mol Microbiol 51:1525–1533
Verlinden RA, Hill DJ, Kenward MA, Williams CD, Radecka I (2007) Bacterial synthesis of biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoates. J Appl Microbiol 102:1437–1449
Weber H, Polen T, Heuveling J, Wendisch VF, Hengge R (2005) Genome-wide analysis of the general stress response network in Escherichia coli: sigmaS-dependent genes, promoters, and sigma factor selectivity. J Bacteriol 187:1591–1603
Zhang H, Obias V, Gonyer K, Dennis D (1994) Production of polyhydroxyalkanoates in sucrose-utilizing recombinant Escherichia coli and Klebsiella strains. Appl Environ Microbiol 60:1198–1205
Zhou Y, Gottesman S (1998) Regulation of proteolysis of the stationary-phase sigma factor RpoS. J Bacteriol 180:1154–1158
Zhou Y, Gottesman S, Hoskins JR, Maurizi MR, Wickner S (2001) The RssB response regulator directly targets sigma(S) for degradation by ClpXP. Genes Dev 15:627–637
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by grants from National High-Tech Research and Development Plan of China (2006AA02Z218) and National Basic Research Program of China (2007CB707803).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kang, Z., Wang, Q., Zhang, H. et al. Construction of a stress-induced system in Escherichia coli for efficient polyhydroxyalkanoates production. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 79, 203–208 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-008-1428-z
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-008-1428-z