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Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli W3110 for the production of l-methionine

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

Abstract

In this study, we constructed an l-methionine-producing recombinant strain from wild-type Escherichia coli W3110 by metabolic engineering. To enhance the carbon flux to methionine and derepression met regulon, thrBC, lysA, and metJ were deleted in turn. Methionine biosynthesis obstacles were overcome by overexpression of metA Fbr (Fbr, Feedback resistance), metB, and malY under control of promoter pN25. Recombinant strain growth and methionine production were further improved by attenuation of metK gene expression through replacing native promoter by metK84p. Blocking the threonine pathway by deletion of thrBC or thrC was compared. Deletion of thrC showed faster growth rate and higher methionine production. Finally, metE, metF, and metH were overexpressed to enhance methylation efficiency. Compared with the original strain E. coli W3110, the finally obtained Me05 (pETMAFbr-B-Y/pKKmetH) improved methionine production from 0 to 0.65 and 5.62 g/L in a flask and a 15-L fermenter, respectively.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financial supported by the National Natural Foundation of China (No. 31401674), the National High-Tech Research and Development Program of China (863 Program, No 2011AA100905, 2012AA02120101), and Science Found for Distinguished Young Scholars of Jiangsu province, China (BK20140002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Key Laboratory of Industrial Biotechnology of Ministry of Education, National Engineering Laboratory for Cereal Fermentation Technology, School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University, 1800 Lihu Road, Wuxi, 214122, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

    Hua Li, Bao Shi Wang, You Ran Li, Liang Zhang, Zhong Yang Ding, Zheng Hua Gu & Gui Yang Shi

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  1. Hua Li
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Correspondence to Gui Yang Shi.

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Li, H., Wang, B.S., Li, Y.R. et al. Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli W3110 for the production of l-methionine. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 44, 75–88 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-016-1870-3

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