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Construction of a novel sugar alcohol-inducible expression system in Bacillus licheniformis

  • Applied genetics and molecular biotechnology
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Abstract

Bacillus licheniformis is an important industrial microorganism that can utilize a wide range of biomass. However, the lack of expression elements in B. licheniformis, especially regulated promoters, significantly restricts its applications. In this study, two promoters involved in the sugar alcohol uptake pathway, PmtlA and PmtlR, were characterized and developed as regulated promoters for expression. The results showed that mannitol, mannose, sorbitol, sorbose, and arabinose can act as inducers to activate expression from PmtlA at different levels. The induction by sorbitol was the strongest, and the optimal induction conditions were 15 g/L sorbitol during mid-logarithmic growth at 28 °C. In this work, the palindrome-like sequence ‘TTGTCA-cacggctcc-TGCCAA’ in PmtlA was identified as the binding site of the MtlR protein. This study helps to enrich the known inducible expression systems in B. licheniformis.

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Funding

This study was supported by the National Key Research & Development Program of China (2018YFA0900300,  2018YFA0900304 and 2016YFD0401404), the National Natural Foundation of China (31401674), Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (SJCX19_0771), the National First-Class Discipline Program of Light Industry Technology and Engineering (LITE2018-22), and the Top-notch Academic Programs Project of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Fengxu Xiao, Youran Li, Yupeng Zhang, Hanrong Wang, Liang Zhang, Zhongyang Ding, Zhenghua Gu, Sha Xu & Guiyang Shi

  2. National Engineering Laboratory for Cereal Fermentation Technology, Jiangnan University, 1800 Lihu Avenue, Wuxi, 214122, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China

    Fengxu Xiao, Youran Li, Yupeng Zhang, Hanrong Wang, Liang Zhang, Zhongyang Ding, Zhenghua Gu, Sha Xu & Guiyang Shi

  3. Jiangsu Provincial Research Center for Bioactive Product Processing Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, 214122, People’s Republic of China

    Fengxu Xiao, Youran Li, Yupeng Zhang, Hanrong Wang, Liang Zhang, Zhongyang Ding, Zhenghua Gu, Sha Xu & Guiyang Shi

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  1. Fengxu Xiao
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  2. Youran Li
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  7. Zhenghua Gu
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  8. Sha Xu
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  9. Guiyang Shi
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Correspondence to Guiyang Shi.

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Xiao, F., Li, Y., Zhang, Y. et al. Construction of a novel sugar alcohol-inducible expression system in Bacillus licheniformis. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 104, 5409–5425 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-020-10618-8

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