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Rational design and analysis of an Escherichia coli strain for high-efficiency tryptophan production

  • Genetics and Molecular Biology of Industrial Organisms - Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

l-tryptophan (l-trp) is a precursor of various bioactive components and has great pharmaceutical interest. However, due to the requirement of several precursors and complex regulation of the pathways involved, the development of an efficient l-trp production strain is challenging. In this study, Escherichia coli (E. coli) strain KW001 was designed to overexpress the l-trp operator sequences (trpEDCBA) and 3-deoxy-D-arabinoheptulosonate-7-phosphate synthase (aroGfbr). To further improve the production of l-trp, pyruvate kinase (pykF) and the phosphotransferase system HPr (ptsH) were deleted after inactivation of repression (trpR) and attenuation (attenuator) to produce strain KW006. To overcome the relatively slow growth and to increase the transport rate of glucose, strain KW018 was generated by combinatorial regulation of glucokinase (galP) and galactose permease (glk) expression. To reduce the production of acetic acid, strain KW023 was created by repressive regulation of phosphate acetyltransferase (pta) expression. In conclusion, strain KW023 efficiently produced 39.7 g/L of l-trp with a conversion rate of 16.7% and a productivity of 1.6 g/L/h in a 5 L fed-batch fermentation system.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Tianjin Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (17JCJQJC45300), the Nature Science Foundation of Tianjin City (CN) (16JCYBJC23500), Tianjin science and technology Project (15PTCYSY00020), the Key Projects in the Tianjin Science & Technology Pillar Program (14ZCZDSY00058), and Key Laboratory of Systems Microbial Biotechnology, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Engineering, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian, 116034, People’s Republic of China

    Yuanye Chen & Lina Cong

  2. Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin, 300308, People’s Republic of China

    Yuanye Chen, Yongfei Liu, Dongqin Ding & Dawei Zhang

  3. Key Laboratory of Systems Microbial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin, 300308, People’s Republic of China

    Yongfei Liu, Dongqin Ding & Dawei Zhang

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  1. Yuanye Chen
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Correspondence to Lina Cong or Dawei Zhang.

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Chen, Y., Liu, Y., Ding, D. et al. Rational design and analysis of an Escherichia coli strain for high-efficiency tryptophan production. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 45, 357–367 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-018-2020-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-018-2020-x

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