Enrichment of specific monomer in medium-chain-length poly(3-hydroxyalkanoates) by amplification of fadD and fadE genes in recombinant Escherichia coli

Gentamicin resistance to Escherichia coli related to fatty acid metabolism based on transcriptome analysis

Antibiotic overuse and misuse have promoted the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Increasing bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a major healthcare problem, necessitating elucidation of antibiotic resistance mechanisms. In this study, we explored the mechanism of gentamicin resistance by comparing the transcriptomes of antibiotic-sensitive and -resistant Escherichia coli. A total of 410 differentially expressed genes were identified, of which 233 (56.83%) were up-regulated and 177 (43.17%) were down-regulated in the resistant strain compared with the sensitive strain. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis classifies differential gene expression into three main categories: biological processes, cellular components, and molecular functions. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis indicated that the up-regulated genes were enriched in eight metabolic pathways, including fatty acid metabolism, which suggests that fatty acid metabolism may be involved in the development of gentamicin resistance in E. coli. This was demonstrated by measuring the acetyl-CoA carboxylase activity, plays a fundamental role in fatty acid metabolism, was increased in gentamicin-resistant E. coli. Treatment of fatty acid synthesis inhibitor, triclosan, promoted gentamicin-mediated killing efficacy to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. We also found that exogenous addition of oleic acid, which involved in fatty acid metabolism, reduced E. coli sensitivity to gentamicin. Overall, our results provide insight into the molecular mechanism of gentamicin resistance development in E. coli.

Emergent Approaches to Efficient and Sustainable Polyhydroxyalkanoate Production

Petroleum-derived plastics dominate currently used plastic materials. These plastics are derived from finite fossil carbon sources and were not designed for recycling or biodegradation. With the ever-increasing quantities of plastic wastes entering landfills and polluting our environment, there is an urgent need for fundamental change. One component to that change is developing cost-effective plastics derived from readily renewable resources that offer chemical or biological recycling and can be designed to have properties that not only allow the replacement of current plastics but also offer new application opportunities. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) remain a promising candidate for commodity bioplastic production, despite the many decades of efforts by academicians and industrial scientists that have not yet achieved that goal. This article focuses on defining obstacles and solutions to overcome cost-performance metrics that are not sufficiently competitive with current commodity thermoplastics. To that end, this review describes various process innovations that build on fed-batch and semi-continuous modes of operation as well as methods that lead to high cell density cultivations. Also, we discuss work to move from costly to lower cost substrates such as lignocellulose-derived hydrolysates, metabolic engineering of organisms that provide higher substrate conversion rates, the potential of halophiles to provide low-cost platforms in non-sterile environments for PHA formation, and work that uses mixed culture strategies to overcome obstacles of using waste substrates. We also describe historical problems and potential solutions to downstream processing for PHA isolation that, along with feedstock costs, have been an Achilles heel towards the realization of cost-efficient processes. Finally, future directions for efficient PHA production and relevant structural variations are discussed.

FadD from Pseudomonas putida CA-3 is a true long-chain fatty acyl coenzyme A synthetase that activates phenylalkanoic and alkanoic acids

A fatty acyl coenzyme A synthetase (FadD) from Pseudomonas putida CA-3 is capable of activating a wide range of phenylalkanoic and alkanoic acids. It exhibits the highest rates of reaction and catalytic efficiency with long-chain aromatic and aliphatic substrates. FadD exhibits higher k(cat) and K(m) values for aromatic substrates than for the aliphatic equivalents (e.g., 15-phenylpentadecanoic acid versus pentadecanoic acid). FadD is inhibited noncompetitively by both acrylic acid and 2-bromooctanoic acid. The deletion of the fadD gene from P. putida CA-3 resulted in no detectable growth or polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) accumulation with 10-phenyldecanoic acid, decanoic acid, and longer-chain substrates. The results suggest that FadD is solely responsible for the activation of long-chain phenylalkanoic and alkanoic acids. While the CA-3DeltafadD mutant could grow on medium-chain substrates, a decrease in growth yield and PHA accumulation was observed. The PHA accumulated by CA-3DeltafadD contained a greater proportion of short-chain monomers than did wild-type PHA. Growth of CA-3DeltafadD was unaffected, but PHA accumulation decreased modestly with shorter-chain substrates. The complemented mutant regained 70% to 90% of the growth and PHA-accumulating ability of the wild-type strain depending on the substrate. The expression of an extra copy of fadD in P. putida CA-3 resulted in increased levels of PHA accumulation (up to 1.6-fold) and an increase in the incorporation of longer-monomer units into the PHA polymer.

Metabolic engineering of Aeromonas hydrophila for the enhanced production of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate)

Wild-type Aeromonas hydrophila 4AK4 produced 35-45 wt.% poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) (PHBHHx) consisting of 10-15 mol% 3-hydroxyhexanoate (3HHx). To enhance PHBHHx production, vgb gene encoding Vitreoscilla haemoglobin or fadD gene encoding Escherichia coli acyl-CoA synthase was co-expressed with polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) synthesis-related genes including phbAB from Wautersia eutropha and phaPCJ from A. hydrophila. Expression of vgb increased PHBHHx content from 46 to 53 wt.% without affecting the polymer monomers composition, whereas fadD increased both PHBHHx content from 46 to 64 wt.% and its 3HHx fraction from 15 to 24 mol%. Co-expression of vgb or fadD gene with PHA-synthesis-related genes generally increased PHBHHx content over 60 wt.%. Co-expression of phbAB with vgb increased PHBHHx content and concentration up to about 70 wt.% and 4.0 g l-1, respectively. Fermentor study also showed that in the recombinants harboring vgb, CDW, PHBHHx concentration and productivity were significantly elevated up to 54 g l-1, 28.5 g l-1 and 0.791 g l-1 h-1, respectively, suggesting that vgb could promote PHA synthesis. In this strain, lac promoter could be used to constitutively express foreign genes such as phbA and phbB encoding beta-ketothiolase and NADPH-dependent acetoacetyl-CoA reductase of W. eutropha, respectively, without use of IPTG. The results showed that combined expression of different genes was a successful strategy to enhance PHA production, which could be useful for strain development to construct other recombinant PHA-producing strains.

New fadB homologous enzymes and their use in enhanced biosynthesis of medium-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanoates infadB mutantEscherichia coli

Recombinant Escherichia coli harboring the medium-chain-length (MCL) polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthase gene has been shown to accumulate MCL-PHAs from fatty acids when FadB is inactive. However, the enzymes in fadB mutant E. coli responsible for channeling the beta-oxidation intermediates to PHA biosynthesis have not been fully elucidated. Only recently, two enzymes encoded by yfcX and maoC have been found to be partially responsible for this. In this study, we identified five new FadB homologous enzymes in E. coli: PaaG, PaaF, BhbD, SceH, and YdbU, by protein database search, and examined their roles in the biosynthesis of MCL-PHAs in an fadB mutant E. coli strain. Coexpression of each of these genes along with the Pseudomonas sp. 61-3 phaC2 gene did not allow synthesis of MCL-PHA from fatty acid in recombinant E. coli W3110, which has a fully functional beta-oxidation pathway, but allowed MCL-PHA accumulation in an fadB mutant E. coli WB101. In particular, coexpression of the paaG, paaF, and ydbU genes resulted in a MCL-PHA production up to 0.37, 0.25, and 0.33 g/L, respectively, from 2 g/L of sodium decanoate, which is more than twice higher than that obtained with E. coli WB101 expressing only the phaC2 gene (0.16 g/L). These results suggest that the newly found FadB homologous enzymes, or at least the paaG, paaF, and ydbU genes, are involved in MCL-PHA biosynthesis in an fadB mutant E. coli strain and can be employed for the enhanced production of MCL-PHA.

Process design for microbial plastic factories: metabolic engineering of polyhydroxyalkanoates

Implementing several metabolic engineering strategies, either individually or in combination, it is possible to construct microbial plastic factories to produce a variety of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) biopolymers with desirable structures and material properties. Approaches include external substrate manipulation, inhibitor addition, recombinant gene expression, host cell genome manipulation and, most recently, protein engineering of PHA biosynthetic enzymes. In addition, mathematical models and molecular methods can be used to elucidate metabolically engineered systems and to identify targets for performance improvement.