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Boosting fatty acid synthesis in Rhodococcus opacus PD630 by overexpression of autologous thioesterases

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Abstract

Objectives

To explore the role of thioesterases in Rhodococcus opacus PD630 by endogenously overexpression in this bacteria for increased lipid production.

Results

Overexpression of four thioesterases from R. opacus PD630 in E. coli led to a 2- to 8-fold increase in C16:1 and C18:1 fatty acids while, when overexpressed in R. opacus PD630, only two recombinants had significant effect on the quantities and compositions of total fatty acid. The contents of total fatty acids (FAs) in two recombinants, pJTE2 (OPAG_00508 thioesterase) and pJTE4 (WP_012687673.1 thioesterase), were 400–460 mg/g (CDW) which is 1.5 times of wild-type strain PD630 (300-350 mg/g CDW), and 20–30 % (w/w) more than that of the control strain PDpJAM2 (330-370 mg/g CDW). The contents of 17:1 and 18:1 fatty acids increased by about 27 and 35 %, respectively, in pJTE2 and by 35 and 20 %, respectively, in pJTE4 compared with the control strain.

Conclusions

The engineered strains showed improved production of lipid (as total fatty acids), and could also tailor the composition of the fatty acid profile when cultured in mineral salts medium using glucose as sole carbon source.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31271812), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2012AA022105C), and the Strategic Merieux Research Grant.

Supporting Information

Supplementary Table 1—List of plasmids and primers used.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology, School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, 1800 Lihu Avenue, Wuxi, 214122, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

    Luxuan Huang, Lina Zhao, Xinyi Zan & Yuanda Song

  2. Colin Ratledge Center for Microbial Lipids, School of Agricultural Engineering and Food Science, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo, 255049, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Yuanda Song

  3. School of Biological Sciences, University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX, UK

    Colin Ratledge

Authors
  1. Luxuan Huang
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  2. Lina Zhao
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  3. Xinyi Zan
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  4. Yuanda Song
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  5. Colin Ratledge
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yuanda Song.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical statement

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors

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Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 16 kb)

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Huang, L., Zhao, L., Zan, X. et al. Boosting fatty acid synthesis in Rhodococcus opacus PD630 by overexpression of autologous thioesterases. Biotechnol Lett 38, 999–1008 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-016-2072-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-016-2072-9

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