Pathway optimization and key enzyme evolution of N-acetylneuraminate biosynthesis using an in vivo aptazyme-based biosensor

State-of-the-art in engineering small molecule biosensors and their applications in metabolic engineering

Genetically encoded biosensors are crucial for enhancing our understanding of how molecules regulate biological systems. Small molecule biosensors, in particular, help us understand the interaction between chemicals and biological processes. They also accelerate metabolic engineering by increasing screening throughput and eliminating the need for sample preparation through traditional chemical analysis. Additionally, they offer significantly higher spatial and temporal resolution in cellular analyte measurements. In this review, we discuss recent progress in in vivo biosensors and control systems-biosensor-based controllers-for metabolic engineering. We also specifically explore protein-based biosensors that utilize less commonly exploited signaling mechanisms, such as protein stability and induced degradation, compared to more prevalent transcription factor and allosteric regulation mechanism. We propose that these lesser-used mechanisms will be significant for engineering eukaryotic systems and slower-growing prokaryotic systems where protein turnover may facilitate more rapid and reliable measurement and regulation of the current cellular state. Lastly, we emphasize the utilization of cutting-edge and state-of-the-art techniques in the development of protein-based biosensors, achieved through rational design, directed evolution, and collaborative approaches.

Directed Evolution of 4-Hydroxyphenylpyruvate Biosensors Based on a Dual Selection System

Biosensors based on allosteric transcription factors have been widely used in synthetic biology. In this study, we utilized the Acinetobacter ADP1 transcription factor PobR to develop a biosensor activating the PpobA promoter when bound to its natural ligand, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (4HB). To screen for PobR mutants responsive to 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate(HPP), we developed a dual selection system in E. coli. The positive selection of this system was used to enrich PobR mutants that identified the required ligands. The following negative selection eliminated or weakened PobR mutants that still responded to 4HB. Directed evolution of the PobR library resulted in a variant where PobRW177R was 5.1 times more reactive to 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate than PobRWT. Overall, we developed an efficient dual selection system for directed evolution of biosensors.

Genetically encoded ATP and NAD(P)H biosensors: potential tools in metabolic engineering

To date, many metabolic engineering tools and strategies have been developed, including tools for cofactor engineering, which is a common strategy for bioproduct synthesis. Cofactor engineering is used for the regulation of pyridine nucleotides, including NADH/NAD+ and NADPH/NADP+, and adenosine triphosphate/adenosine diphosphate (ATP/ADP), which is crucial for maintaining redox and energy balance. However, the intracellular levels of NADH/NAD+, NADPH/NADP+, and ATP/ADP cannot be monitored in real time using traditional methods. Recently, many biosensors for detecting, monitoring, and regulating the intracellular levels of NADH/NAD+, NADPH/NADP+, and ATP/ADP have been developed. Although cofactor biosensors have been mainly developed for use in mammalian cells, the potential application of cofactor biosensors in metabolic engineering in bacterial and yeast cells has received recent attention. Coupling cofactor biosensors with genetic circuits is a promising strategy in metabolic engineering for optimizing the production of biochemicals. In this review, we focus on the development of biosensors for NADH/NAD+, NADPH/NADP+, and ATP/ADP and the potential application of these biosensors in metabolic engineering. We also provide critical perspectives, identify current research challenges, and provide guidance for future research in this promising field.

Biosensor-guided discovery and engineering of metabolic enzymes

A variety of chemicals have been produced through metabolic engineering approaches, and enhancing biosynthesis performance can be achieved by using enzymes with high catalytic efficiency. Accordingly, a number of efforts have been made to discover enzymes in nature for various applications. In addition, enzyme engineering approaches have been attempted to suit specific industrial purposes. However, a significant challenge in enzyme discovery and engineering is the efficient screening of enzymes with the desired phenotype from extensive enzyme libraries. To overcome this bottleneck, genetically encoded biosensors have been developed to specifically detect target molecules produced by enzyme activity at the intracellular level. Especially, the biosensors facilitate high-throughput screening (HTS) of targeted enzymes, expanding enzyme discovery and engineering strategies with advances in systems and synthetic biology. This review examines biosensor-guided HTS systems and highlights studies that have utilized these tools to discover enzymes in diverse areas and engineer enzymes to enhance their properties, such as catalytic efficiency, specificity, and stability.

Growth-coupled high throughput selection for directed enzyme evolution

Directed enzyme evolution has revolutionized the rapid development of enzymes with desired properties. However, the lack of a high-throughput method to identify the most suitable variants from a large pool of genetic diversity poses a major bottleneck. To overcome this challenge, growth-coupled in vivo high-throughput selection approaches (GCHTS) have emerged as a novel selection system for enzyme evolution. GCHTS links the survival of the host cell with the properties of the target protein, resulting in a screening system that is easily measurable and has a high throughput-scale limited only by transformation efficiency. This allows for the rapid identification of desired variants from a pool of >109 variants in each experiment. In recent years, GCHTS approaches have been extensively utilized in the directed evolution of multiple enzymes, demonstrating success in catalyzing non-native substrates, enhancing catalytic activity, and acquiring novel functions. This review introduces three main strategies employed to achieve GCHTS: the elimination of toxic compounds via desired variants, enabling host cells to thrive in hazardous conditions; the complementation of an auxotroph with desired variants, where essential genes for cell growth have been eliminated; and the control of the transcription or expression of a reporter gene related to host cell growth, regulated by the desired variants. Additionally, we highlighted the recent developments in the in vivo continuous evolution of enzyme technology, including phage-assisted continuous evolution (PACE) and orthogonal DNA Replication (OrthoRep). Furthermore, this review discusses the challenges and future prospects in the field of growth-coupled selection for protein engineering.

Genetically Encoded Biosensor Engineering for Application in Directed Evolution

Although rational genetic engineering is nowadays the favored method for microbial strain improvement, building up mutant libraries based on directed evolution for improvement is still in many cases the better option. In this regard, the demand for precise and efficient screening methods for mutants with high performance has stimulated the development of biosensor-based high-throughput screening strategies. Genetically encoded biosensors provide powerful tools to couple the desired phenotype to a detectable signal, such as fluorescence and growth rate. Herein, we review recent advances in engineering several classes of biosensors and their applications in directed evolution. Furthermore, we compare and discuss the screening advantages and limitations of two-component biosensors, transcription-factor-based biosensors, and RNA-based biosensors. Engineering these biosensors has focused mainly on modifying the expression level or structure of the biosensor components to optimize the dynamic range, specificity, and detection range. Finally, the applications of biosensors in the evolution of proteins, metabolic pathways, and genome-scale metabolic networks are described. This review provides potential guidance in the design of biosensors and their applications in improving the bioproduction of microbial cell factories through directed evolution.

Bacterial glycobiotechnology: A biosynthetic route for the production of biopharmaceutical glycans

The recent advancement in the human glycome and progress in the development of an inclusive network of glycosylation pathways allow the incorporation of suitable machinery for protein modification in non-natural hosts and explore novel opportunities for constructing next-generation tailored glycans and glycoconjugates. Fortunately, the emerging field of bacterial metabolic engineering has enabled the production of tailored biopolymers by harnessing living microbial factories (prokaryotes) as whole-cell biocatalysts. Microbial catalysts offer sophisticated means to develop a variety of valuable polysaccharides in bulk quantities for practical clinical applications. Glycans production through this technique is highly efficient and cost-effective, as it does not involve expensive initial materials. Metabolic glycoengineering primarily focuses on utilizing small metabolite molecules to alter biosynthetic pathways, optimization of cellular processes for glycan and glycoconjugate production, characteristic to a specific organism to produce interest tailored glycans in microbes, using preferably cheap and simple substrate. However, metabolic engineering faces one of the unique challenges, such as the need for an enzyme to catalyze desired substrate conversion when natural native substrates are already present. So, in metabolic engineering, such challenges are evaluated, and different strategies have been developed to overcome them. The generation of glycans and glycoconjugates via metabolic intermediate pathways can still be supported by glycol modeling achieved through metabolic engineering. It is evident that modern glycans engineering requires adoption of improved strain engineering strategies for creating competent glycoprotein expression platforms in bacterial hosts, in the future. These strategies include logically designing and introducing orthogonal glycosylation pathways, identifying metabolic engineering targets at the genome level, and strategically improving pathway performance (for example, through genetic modification of pathway enzymes). Here, we highlight current strategies, applications, and recent progress in metabolic engineering for producing high-value tailored glycans and their applications in biotherapeutics and diagnostics.

Recent advances on N-acetylneuraminic acid: Physiological roles, applications, and biosynthesis

N-Acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac), the most common type of Sia, generally acts as the terminal sugar in cell surface glycans, glycoconjugates, oligosaccharides, lipo-oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides, thus exerting numerous physiological functions. The extensive applications of Neu5Ac in the food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical industries make large-scale production of this chemical desirable. Biosynthesis which is associated with important application potential and environmental friendliness has become an indispensable approach for large-scale synthesis of Neu5Ac. In this review, the physiological roles of Neu5Ac was first summarized in detail. Second, the safety evaluation, regulatory status, and applications of Neu5Ac were discussed. Third, enzyme-catalyzed preparation, whole-cell biocatalysis, and microbial de novo synthesis of Neu5Ac were comprehensively reviewed. In addition, we discussed the main challenges of Neu5Ac de novo biosynthesis, such as screening and engineering of key enzymes, identifying exporters of intermediates and Neu5Ac, and balancing cell growth and biosynthesis. The corresponding strategies and systematic strategies were proposed to overcome these challenges and facilitate Neu5Ac industrial-scale production.

Synthetic biology-based bioreactor and its application in biochemical analysis

In the past few years, synthetic biologists have established some biological elements and bioreactors composed of nucleotides under the guidance of engineering methods. Following the concept of engineering, the common bioreactor components in recent years are introduced and compared. At present, biosensors based on synthetic biology have been applied to water pollution monitoring, disease diagnosis, epidemiological monitoring, biochemical analysis and other detection fields. In this paper, the biosensor components based on synthetic bioreactors and reporters are reviewed. In addition, the applications of biosensors based on cell system and cell-free system in the detection of heavy metal ions, nucleic acid, antibiotics and other substances are presented. Finally, the bottlenecks faced by biosensors and the direction of optimization are also discussed.

Engineering of Synthetic Multiplexed Pathways for High-Level N-Acetylneuraminic Acid Bioproduction

N-Acetylneuraminic acid (NeuAc) is widely used as a supplement to promote brain health and enhance immunity. However, the low efficiency of de novo NeuAc synthesis limits its cost-efficient bioproduction. Herein, a synthetic multiplexed pathway engineering (SMPE) strategy is proposed to improve NeuAc synthesis. First, we compare the key enzyme sources and optimize the expression levels of three NeuAc synthesis pathways in Bacillus subtilis; the AGE, NeuC, and NanE pathways, for which NeuAc production reached 3.94, 5.67, and 0.19 g/L, respectively. Next, these synthesis pathways were combined and modularly optimized via the SMPE strategy, with production reaching 7.87 g/L. Finally, fed-batch fermentation in a 5 L fermenter reached 30.10 g/L NeuAc production, the highest reported production using glucose as the sole carbon source. Using a generally regarded as safe strain as a production host, the developed NeuAc-producing approach should be favorable for efficient bioproduction, without the need for plasmids, antibiotics, or chemical inducers.

Synthetic Biology Advanced Natural Product Discovery

A wide variety of bacteria, fungi and plants can produce bioactive secondary metabolites, which are often referred to as natural products. With the rapid development of DNA sequencing technology and bioinformatics, a large number of putative biosynthetic gene clusters have been reported. However, only a limited number of natural products have been discovered, as most biosynthetic gene clusters are not expressed or are expressed at extremely low levels under conventional laboratory conditions. With the rapid development of synthetic biology, advanced genome mining and engineering strategies have been reported and they provide new opportunities for discovery of natural products. This review discusses advances in recent years that can accelerate the design, build, test, and learn (DBTL) cycle of natural product discovery, and prospects trends and key challenges for future research directions.

Modular tuning engineering and versatile applications of genetically encoded biosensors

Genetically encoded biosensors have a diverse range of detectable signals and potential applications in many fields, including metabolism control and high-throughput screening. Their ability to be used in situ with minimal interference to the bioprocess of interest could revolutionize synthetic biology and microbial cell factories. The performance and functions of these biosensors have been extensively studied and have been rapidly improved. We review here current biosensor tuning strategies and attempt to unravel how to obtain ideal biosensor functions through experimental adjustments. Strategies for expanding the biosensor input signals that increases the number of detectable compounds have also been summarized. Finally, different output signals and their practical requirements for biotechnology and biomedical applications and environmental safety concerns have been analyzed. This in-depth review of the responses and regulation mechanisms of genetically encoded biosensors will assist to improve their design and optimization in various application scenarios.

Advanced strategies and tools to facilitate and streamline microbial adaptive laboratory evolution

Adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) has served as a historic microbial engineering method that mimics natural selection to obtain desired microbes. The past decade has witnessed improvements in all aspects of ALE workflow, in terms of growth coupling, genotypic diversification, phenotypic selection, and genotype-phenotype mapping. The developing growth-coupling strategies facilitate ALE to a wider range of appealing traits. In vivo mutagenesis methods and multiplexed automated culture platforms open new gates to streamline its execution. Meanwhile, the application of multi-omics analyses and multiplexed genetic engineering promote efficient knowledge mining. This article provides a comprehensive and updated review of these advances, highlights newest significant applications, and discusses future improvements, aiming to provide a practical guide for implementation of novel, effective, and efficient ALE experiments.

Cell-based high-throughput screening of polysaccharide biosynthesis hosts

Valuable polysaccharides are usually produced using wild-type or metabolically-engineered host microbial strains through fermentation. These hosts act as cell factories that convert carbohydrates, such as monosaccharides or starch, into bioactive polysaccharides. It is desirable to develop effective in vivo high-throughput approaches to screen cells that display high-level synthesis of the desired polysaccharides. Uses of single or dual fluorophore labeling, fluorescence quenching, or biosensors are effective strategies for cell sorting of a library that can be applied during the domestication of industrial engineered strains and metabolic pathway optimization of polysaccharide synthesis in engineered cells. Meanwhile, high-throughput screening strategies using each individual whole cell as a sorting section are playing growing roles in the discovery and directed evolution of enzymes involved in polysaccharide biosynthesis, such as glycosyltransferases. These enzymes and their mutants are in high demand as tool catalysts for synthesis of saccharides in vitro and in vivo. This review provides an introduction to the methodologies of using cell-based high-throughput screening for desired polysaccharide-biosynthesizing cells, followed by a brief discussion of potential applications of these approaches in glycoengineering.

Synthetic biology-driven microbial production of folates: Advances and perspectives

With the development and application of synthetic biology, significant progress has been made in the production of folate by microbial fermentation using cell factories, especially for using generally regarded as safe (GRAS) microorganism as production host. In this review, the physiological functions and applications of folates were firstly discussed. Second, the current advances of folate-producing GRAS strains development were summarized. Third, the applications of synthetic biology-based metabolic regulatory tools in GRAS strains were introduced, and the progress in the application of these tools for folate production were summarized. Finally, the challenges to folates efficient production and corresponding emerging strategies to overcome them by synthetic biology were discussed, including the construction of biosensors using tetrahydrofolate riboswitches to regulate metabolic pathways, adaptive evolution to overcome the flux limitations of the folate pathway. The combination of new strategies and tools of synthetic biology is expected to further improve the efficiency of microbial folate synthesis.

Isoleucyl-tRNA synthetase mutant based whole-cell biosensor for high-throughput selection of isoleucine overproducers

Whole-cell amino acid biosensors can sense the concentrations of certain amino acids and output easily detectable signals, which are important for construction of microbial producers. However, many reported biosensors have poor specificity because they also sense non-target amino acids. Besides, biosensors for many amino acids are still unavailable. In this study, we proposed a new strategy for constructing whole-cell biosensors based on aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs), which take the advantage of their universality and intrinsically specific binding ability to corresponding amino acids. Taking isoleucine biosensor as an example, we first mutated the isoleucyl-tRNA synthetase in Escherichia coli to dramatically decrease its affinity to isoleucine. The engineered cells specifically sensed isoleucine and output isoleucine dose-dependent cell growth as an easily detectable signal. To further expand the sensing range, an isoleucine exporter was overexpressed to enhance excretion of intracellular isoleucine. Since cells equipped with the optimized whole-cell biosensor showed accelerated growth when cells produced higher concentrations of isoleucine, the biosensor was successfully applied in high-throughput selection of isoleucine overproducers from random mutation libraries. This work demonstrates the feasibility of engineering aaRSs to construct a new kind of whole-cell biosensors for amino acids. Considering all twenty proteinogenic and many non-canonical amino acids have their specific aaRSs, this strategy should be useful for developing biosensors for various amino acids.

An overview and future prospects of sialic acids

Sialic acids (Sias) are negatively charged functional monosaccharides present in a wide variety of natural sources (plants, animals and microorganisms). Sias play an important role in many life processes, which are widely applied in the medical and food industries as intestinal antibacterials, antivirals, anti-oxidative agents, food ingredients, and detoxification agents. Most Sias are composed of N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac, >99%), and Sia is its most commonly used name. In this article, we review Sias in terms of their structures, applications, determination methods, metabolism, and production strategies. In particular, we summarise and compare different production strategies, including extraction from natural sources, chemical synthesis, polymer decomposition, enzymatic synthesis, whole-cell catalysis, and de novo biosynthesis via microorganism fermentation. We also discuss research on their physiological functions and applications, barriers to efficient production, and strategies for overcoming these challenges. We focus on efficient de novo biosynthesis strategies for Neu5Ac via microbial fermentation using novel synthetic biology tools and methods that may be applied in future. This work provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances on Sias, and addresses future challenges regarding their functions, applications, and production.

Exploring Amino Sugar and Phosphoenolpyruvate Metabolism to Improve Escherichia coli N-Acetylneuraminic Acid Production

N-acetyl-d-neuraminic acid (NeuAc) has attracted considerable attention because of its wide-ranging applications. The use of cheap carbon sources such as glucose without the addition of any precursor in microbial NeuAc production has many advantages. In this study, improved NeuAc production was attained through the optimization of amino sugar metabolism pathway kinetics and reservation of a phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) pool in Escherichia coli. N-acylglucosamine 2-epimerase and N-acetylneuraminate synthase from different sources and their best combinations were used to obtain optimized enzyme kinetics and expression intensity, which resulted in a significant increase in NeuAc production. Next, after a design was engineered for enabling the PEP metabolic pathway to retain the PEP pool, the production of NeuAc reached 16.7 g/L, which is the highest NeuAc production rate that has been reported from using glucose as the sole carbon source.

Metabolic engineering and optimization of the fermentation medium for vitamin B12 production in Escherichia coli

Vitamin B₁₂ is a crucial fine chemical that is widely used in the pharmaceutical, food and chemical industries, and its production solely dependents on microbial fermentation. We previously constructed an artificial vitamin B₁₂ biosynthesis pathway in Escherichia coli, but the yield of the engineered strains was low. Here, we removed metabolic bottlenecks of the vitamin B₁₂ biosynthesis pathway in engineered E. coli strains. After screening cobB genes from different sources, optimizing the expression of cobN and customizing the ribosome binding sites of cobS and cobT, the vitamin B₁₂ yield increased to 152.29 μg/g dry cell weight (DCW). Optimization of the downstream module, which converts co(II)byrinic acid a,c-diamide into adenosylcobinamide phosphate, elevated the vitamin B₁₂ yield to 249.04 μg/g DCW. A comparison of a variety of equivalent components indicated that glucose and corn steep liquor are optimal carbon and nitrogen sources, respectively. Finally, an orthogonal array design was applied to determine the optimal concentrations of glucose and nitrogen sources including corn steep liquor and yeast extract, through which a vitamin B₁₂ yield of 530.29 μg/g DCW was obtained. The metabolic modifications and optimization of fermentation conditions achieved in this study offer a basis for further improving vitamin B₁₂ production in E. coli and will hopefully accelerate its industrial application.

In vivo evolutionary engineering of riboswitch with high-threshold for N-acetylneuraminic acid production

Riboswitches with desired properties, such as sensitivity, threshold, dynamic range, is important for its application. However, the property change of a natural riboswitch is difficult due to the lack of the understanding of aptamer ligand binding properties and a proper screening method for both rational and irrational design. In this study, an effective method to change the threshold of riboswitch was established in vivo based on growth coupled screening by combining both positive and negative selections. The feasibility of the method was verified by the model library. Using this method, an N-acetylneuraminic acid (NeuAc) riboswitch was evolved and modified riboswitches with high threshold and large dynamic range were obtained. Then, using a new NeuAc riboswitch, both ribosome binding sites and key gene in NeuAc biosynthesis pathway were optimized. The highest NeuAc production of 14.32 g/l that has been reported using glucose as sole carbon source was obtained.

CRISPR/Cas9-Assisted Seamless Genome Editing in Lactobacillus plantarum and Its Application in N-Acetylglucosamine Production

Lactobacillus plantarum is a potential starter and health-promoting probiotic bacterium. Effective, precise, and diverse genome editing of Lactobacillus plantarum without introducing exogenous genes or plasmids is of great importance. In this study, CRISPR/Cas9-assisted double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) and single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) recombineering was established in L. plantarum WCFS1 to seamlessly edit the genome, including gene knockouts, insertions, and point mutations. To optimize our editing method, phosphorothioate modification was used to improve the dsDNA insertion, and adenine-specific methyltransferase was used to improve the ssDNA recombination efficiency. These strategies were applied to engineer L. plantarum WCFS1 toward producing N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc). nagB was truncated to eliminate the reverse reaction of fructose-6-phosphate (F6P) to glucosamine 6-phosphate (GlcN-6P). Riboswitch replacement and point mutation in glmS1 were introduced to relieve feedback repression. The resulting strain produced 797.3 mg/liter GlcNAc without introducing exogenous genes or plasmids. This strategy may contribute to the available methods for precise and diverse genetic engineering in lactic acid bacteria and boost strain engineering for more applications.IMPORTANCE CRISPR/Cas9-assisted recombineering is restricted in lactic acid bacteria because of the lack of available antibiotics and vectors. In this study, a seamless genome editing method was carried out in Lactobacillus plantarum using CRISPR/Cas9-assisted double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) and single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) recombineering, and recombination efficiency was effectively improved by endogenous adenine-specific methyltransferase overexpression. L. plantarum WCFS1 produced 797.3 mg/liter N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) through reinforcement of the GlcNAc pathway, without introducing exogenous genes or plasmids. This seamless editing strategy, combined with the potential exogenous GlcNAc-producing pathway, makes this strain an attractive candidate for industrial use in the future.

The phage T4 DNA ligase in vivo improves the survival-coupled bacterial mutagenesis

Background

Microbial mutagenesis is an important avenue to acquire microbial strains with desirable traits for industry application. However, mutagens either chemical or physical used often leads narrow library pool due to high lethal rate. The T4 DNA ligase is one of the most widely utilized enzymes in modern molecular biology. Its contribution to repair chromosomal DNA damages, therefore cell survival during mutagenesis will be discussed.

Results

Expression of T4 DNA ligase in vivo could substantially increase cell survival to ionizing radiation in multiple species. A T4 mediated survival-coupled mutagenesis approach was proposed. When polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)-producing E. coli with T4 DNA ligase expressed in vivo was subjected to ionizing radiation, mutants with improved PHB production were acquired quickly owing to a large viable mutant library generated. Draft genome sequence analysis showed that the mutants obtained possess not only single nucleotide variation (SNV) but also DNA fragment deletion, indicating that T4 DNA ligase in vivo may contribute to the repair of DNA double strand breaks.

Conclusions

Expression of T4 DNA ligase in vivo could notably enhance microbial survival to excess chromosomal damages caused by various mutagens. Potential application of T4 DNA ligase in microbial mutagenesis was explored by mutating and screening PHB producing E. coli XLPHB strain. When applied to atmospheric and room temperature plasma (ARTP) microbial mutagenesis, large survival pool was obtained. Mutants available for subsequent screening for desirable features. The use of T4 DNA ligase we were able to quickly improve the PHB production by generating a larger viable mutants pool. This method is a universal strategy can be employed in wide range of bacteria. It indicated that traditional random mutagenesis became more powerful in combine with modern genetic molecular biology and has exciting prospect.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12934-019-1160-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A Novel Strategy for Efficient Agaro-Oligosaccharide Production Based on the Enzymatic Degradation of Crude Agarose in Flammeovirga pacifica WPAGA1

To avoid conflict between biofuel and food resource production, marine macroalgae (main algal polysaccharides) have been suggested as potent feedstock for biofuel production. Flammeovirga pacifica WPAGA1, a typical marine polysaccharide-degrading bacterium, can utilize crude agarose as the sole carbon source. Transcriptomic analysis was performed to further investigate the metabolic pathway of environmental-friendly utilization of crude agarose in F. pacifica WPAGA1. All these enzymes were overexpressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3), and the purified enzymes were characterized in vitro. As a result, the pathway of crude agarose which is desulfurized and hydrolyzed by enzymes to produce fermentable sugar is clear. Interestingly, sole neoagarobiose (~450 mg/L) was produced from crude agarose as a feedstock using engineered E. coli BL21(DE3). This study firstly reveals the metabolic pathway of crude agarose in strain WPAGA1 and establishes a novel and environmental-friendly strategy for neoagarobiose production using crude agarose as cost-effective and non-food-based feedstock.

Sensor-Enabled Alleviation of Product Inhibition in Chorismate Pyruvate-Lyase

Product inhibition is a frequent bottleneck in industrial enzymes, and testing mutations to alleviate product inhibition via traditional methods remains challenging as many variants need to be tested against multiple substrate and product concentrations. Further, traditional screening methods are conducted in vitro, and resulting enzyme variants may perform differently in vivo in the context of whole-cell metabolism and regulation. In this study, we address these two problems by establishing a high-throughput screening method to alleviate product inhibition in an industrially relevant enzyme, chorismate pyruvate-lyase (UbiC). First, we engineered a highly specific, genetically encoded biosensor for 4-hydroxybenzoate (4HB) in an industrially relevant host, Pseudomonas putida KT2440. We subsequently applied the biosensor to detect the activity of a heterologously expressed UbiC that converts chorismate into 4HB and pyruvate. By using benzoate as a product surrogate that inhibits UbiC without activating the biosensor, we were able to efficiently create and screen a diversified library for UbiC variants with reduced product inhibition. Introduction of the improved UbiC enzyme variant into an experimental production strain for the industrial precursor cis,cis-muconic acid (muconate), enabled a >2-fold yield improvement for glucose to muconate conversion when the new UbiC variant was expressed from a plasmid and a 60% yield increase when the same UbiC variant was genomically integrated into the strain. Overall, this work demonstrates that by coupling a library of enzyme variants to whole-cell catalysis and biosensing, variants with reduced product inhibition can be identified, and that this improved enzyme can result in increased titers of a downstream molecule of interest.

Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering of actinomycetes for natural product discovery

Actinomycetes are one of the most valuable sources of natural products with industrial and medicinal importance. After more than half a century of exploitation, it has become increasingly challenging to find novel natural products with useful properties as the same known compounds are often repeatedly re-discovered when using traditional approaches. Modern genome mining approaches have led to the discovery of new biosynthetic gene clusters, thus indicating that actinomycetes still harbor a huge unexploited potential to produce novel natural products. In recent years, innovative synthetic biology and metabolic engineering tools have greatly accelerated the discovery of new natural products and the engineering of actinomycetes. In the first part of this review, we outline the successful application of metabolic engineering to optimize natural product production, focusing on the use of multi-omics data, genome-scale metabolic models, rational approaches to balance precursor pools, and the engineering of regulatory genes and regulatory elements. In the second part, we summarize the recent advances of synthetic biology for actinomycetal metabolic engineering including cluster assembly, cloning and expression, CRISPR/Cas9 technologies, and chassis strain development for natural product overproduction and discovery. Finally, we describe new advances in reprogramming biosynthetic pathways through polyketide synthase and non-ribosomal peptide synthetase engineering. These new developments are expected to revitalize discovery and development of new natural products with medicinal and other industrial applications.

Molecular Engineering of Functional Nucleic Acid Nanomaterials toward In Vivo Applications

Recent advances in nanotechnology and engineering have generated many nanomaterials with unique physical and chemical properties. Over the past decade, numerous nanomaterials are introduced into many research areas, such as sensors for environmental monitoring, food safety, point-of-care diagnostics, and as transducers for solar energy transfer. Meanwhile, functional nucleic acids (FNAs), including nucleic acid enzymes, aptamers, and aptazymes, have attracted major attention from the biomedical community due to their unique target recognition and catalytic properties. Benefiting from the recent progress of molecular engineering strategies, the physicochemical properties of nanomaterials are endowed by the target recognition and catalytic activity of FNAs in the presence of a target analyte, resulting in numerous smart nanoprobes for diverse applications including intracellular imaging, drug delivery, in vivo imaging, and tumor therapy. This progress report focuses on the recent advances in designing and engineering FNA-based nanomaterials, highlighting the functional outcomes toward in vivo applications. The challenges and opportunities for the future translation of FNA-based nanomaterials into clinical applications are also discussed.

Advancement of Metabolic Engineering Assisted by Synthetic Biology

Synthetic biology has undergone dramatic advancements for over a decade, during which it has expanded our understanding on the systems of life and opened new avenues for microbial engineering. Many biotechnological and computational methods have been developed for the construction of synthetic systems. Achievements in synthetic biology have been widely adopted in metabolic engineering, a field aimed at engineering micro-organisms to produce substances of interest. However, the engineering of metabolic systems requires dynamic redistribution of cellular resources, the creation of novel metabolic pathways, and optimal regulation of the pathways to achieve higher production titers. Thus, the design principles and tools developed in synthetic biology have been employed to create novel and flexible metabolic pathways and to optimize metabolic fluxes to increase the cells’ capability to act as production factories. In this review, we introduce synthetic biology tools and their applications to microbial cell factory constructions.

In vivo biosensors: mechanisms, development, and applications

In vivo biosensors can recognize and respond to specific cellular stimuli. In recent years, biosensors have been increasingly used in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, because they can be implemented in synthetic circuits to control the expression of reporter genes in response to specific cellular stimuli, such as a certain metabolite or a change in pH. There are many types of natural sensing devices, which can be generally divided into two main categories: protein-based and nucleic acid-based. Both can be obtained either by directly mining from natural genetic components or by engineering the existing genetic components for novel specificity or improved characteristics. A wide range of new technologies have enabled rapid engineering and discovery of new biosensors, which are paving the way for a new era of biotechnological progress. Here, we review recent advances in the design, optimization, and applications of in vivo biosensors in the field of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology.

A protocatechuate biosensor for Pseudomonas putida KT2440 via promoter and protein evolution

Robust fluorescence-based biosensors are emerging as critical tools for high-throughput strain improvement in synthetic biology. Many biosensors are developed in model organisms where sophisticated synthetic biology tools are also well established. However, industrial biochemical production often employs microbes with phenotypes that are advantageous for a target process, and biosensors may fail to directly transition outside the host in which they are developed. In particular, losses in sensitivity and dynamic range of sensing often occur, limiting the application of a biosensor across hosts. Here we demonstrate the optimization of an Escherichia coli-based biosensor in a robust microbial strain for the catabolism of aromatic compounds, Pseudomonas putida KT2440, through a generalizable approach of modulating interactions at the protein-DNA interface in the promoter and the protein-protein dimer interface. The high-throughput biosensor optimization approach demonstrated here is readily applicable towards other allosteric regulators.

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A biosensor optimized for a robust, industrially useful P. putida strain.

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Modulation of protein-DNA and protein-protein interactions pursued.

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Offers a generalized optimization protocol for transcription factor-based sensors.

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Intracellular metabolite production and detection made possible in P. putida.

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Functional biosensor in P. putida will allow high throughput strain evolution.

Design, Optimization and Application of Small Molecule Biosensor in Metabolic Engineering

The development of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering has painted a great future for the bio-based economy, including fuels, chemicals, and drugs produced from renewable feedstocks. With the rapid advance of genome-scale modeling, pathway assembling and genome engineering/editing, our ability to design and generate microbial cell factories with various phenotype becomes almost limitless. However, our lack of ability to measure and exert precise control over metabolite concentration related phenotypes becomes a bottleneck in metabolic engineering. Genetically encoded small molecule biosensors, which provide the means to couple metabolite concentration to measurable or actionable outputs, are highly promising solutions to the bottleneck. Here we review recent advances in the design, optimization and application of small molecule biosensor in metabolic engineering, with particular focus on optimization strategies for transcription factor (TF) based biosensors.