Jens Plassmeier

FarR, a putative regulator of amino acid metabolism in Corynebacterium glutamicum

With the publication of the Corynebacterium glutamicum genome sequence, a global characterization of genes controlled by functionally uncharacterized transcriptional regulators became possible. We used DNA microarrays in combination with gel retardation experiments to study gene regulation by FarR, a HutC/FarR-type regulator of the GntR family. Based on our results, FarR seems to be involved in the regulation of amino acid biosynthesis in C. glutamicum. Especially, transcript levels of the arg cluster and the gdh gene are influenced by deletion of farR.

Molecular characterization of PrpR, the transcriptional activator of propionate catabolism in Corynebacterium glutamicum.

The 2-methylcitrate cycle is used to metabolize propionate in Corynebacterium glutamicum. The regulator, PrpR (Cg0800), of the prpDBC2 operon was identified and characterized. The regulator has no similarities to the up to now known PrpR regulators from other organisms. Growth of a ΔprpR mutant revealed severe growth deficits and a prolonged lag phase if propionate was present in the medium. Transcriptome analyses demonstrated the inability of the ΔprpR strain to induce the prpDBC2 genes in the presence of propionate indicating that PrpR represents a transcriptional activator. They also provided evidence that PrpR controls only the prpDBC2 operon while transcription of the prpR gene was found to be independent of the used carbon source. GC-MS based metabolic profiling of the wild type and the ΔprpR strain grown with propionate revealed smaller pool sizes of the metabolites of the 2-methylcitrate cycle in the mutant strain. The transcriptional start sites and their putative promoters of the prpDBC2 operon and the prpR gene were identified by RACE-PCR. Analyses of promoter test vector constructs led to the identification of a 121bp operator region upstream of prpDBC2, which is essential for a propionate-induced transcription by PrpR. Finally, EMSA studies revealed that 2-methylcitrate most probably acts as co-activator of PrpR.

Engineering l-arabinose metabolism in triacylglycerol-producing Rhodococcus opacus for lignocellulosic fuel production

Advanced biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass have been considered as a potential solution for the issues of energy sustainability and environmental protection. Triacylglycerols (TAGs) are potential precursors for the production of lipid-based liquid biofuels. Rhodococcus opacus PD630 can accumulate large amounts of TAGs when grown under physiological conditions of high carbon and low nitrogen. However, R. opacus PD630 does not utilize the sugar L-arabinose present in lignocellulosic hydrolysates. Here, we report the engineering of R. opacus to produce TAGs on L-arabinose. We constructed a plasmid (pASC8057) harboring araB, araD and araA genes derived from a Streptomyces bacterium, and introduced the genes into R. opacus PD630. One of the engineered strains, MITAE-348, was capable of growing on high concentrations (up to 100 g/L) of L-arabinose. MITAE-348 was grown in a defined medium containing 16 g/L L-arabinose or a mixture of 8 g/L L-arabinose and 8 g/L D-glucose. In a stationary phase occurring 3 days post-inoculation, the strain was able to completely utilize the sugar, and yielded 2.0 g/L for L-arabinose and 2.2 g/L for L-arabinose/D-glucose of TAGs, corresponding to 39.7% or 42.0%, respectively, of the cell dry weight.

A propionate-inducible expression system based on the Corynebacterium glutamicum prpD2 promoter and PrpR activator and its application for the redirection of amino acid biosynthesis pathways.

A novel expression system for Corynebacterium glutamicum, based on the transcriptional activator of propionate metabolism genes PrpR and its target promoter/operator sequence, was developed and tested. The activator PrpR is co-activated by propionate added to the growth medium. In a minimal medium a propionate concentration of only 1 mg l⁻¹ was found to be sufficient for full induction (up to 120-fold) of its native target, the propionate metabolism operon prpDBC2. Then, an artificial transcription and translation reporter system, using the cat gene encoding chloramphenicol acetyl transferase was constructed and tested. The induction was found to be as fast and as high as in the natural system, reaching its maximal transcriptional induction rate within 2 min and a significant accumulation of Cat protein at around 30 min. The duration of the induced transcription was found to be controllable by the propionate concentration applied. The prpD2 promoter and PrpR activator based expression system revealed very similar characteristics in minimal and complex media, making it ideal for applications in large scale industrial fermentations. As a proof-of-principle, the expression system was employed for the propionate-inducible redirection of metabolites in a lysine-production C. glutamicum strain at the homoserine dehydrogenase (hom) branching point, which resulted in an up to 2.5-fold increase of the concentrations of the three amino acids (threonine, homoserine and isoleucine) in the supernatant.

Metabolic engineering Corynebacterium glutamicum to produce triacylglycerols

In this study, we metabolically engineered Corynebacterium glutamicum to produce triacylglycerols (TAGs) by completing and constraining a de novo TAG biosynthesis pathway. First, the plasmid pZ8_TAG4 was constructed which allows the heterologous expression of four genes: three (atf1 and atf2, encoding the diacylglycerol acyltransferase; pgpB, encoding the phosphatidic acid phosphatase) to complete the TAG biosynthesis pathway, and one gene (tadA) for lipid body assembly. Second, we applied four metabolic strategies to increase TAGs accumulation: (i) boosting precursor supply by heterologous expression of tesA (encoding thioesterase to form free fatty acid to reduce the feedback inhibition by acyl-ACP) and fadD (encoding acyl-CoA synthetase to enhance acyl-CoA supply), (ii) reduction of TAG degradation and precursor consumption by deleting four cellular lipases (cg0109, cg0110, cg1676 and cg1320) and the diacylglycerol kinase (cg2849), (iii) enhancement of fatty acid biosynthesis by deletion of fasR (cg2737, TetR-type transcriptional regulator of genes for the fatty acid biosynthesis), and (iv) elimination of the observed by-product formation of organic acids by blocking the acetic acid (pqo) and lactic acid production (ldh) pathways. The final strain (CgTesRtcEfasEbp/pZ8_TAG4) achieved a 7.5% yield of total fatty acids (2.38 ± 0.05 g/L intracellular fatty acids and 0.64 ± 0.09 g/L extracellular fatty acids) from 4% glucose in shake flasks after process optimization. This corresponds to maximum intracellular fatty acids content of 17.8 ± 0.5% of the dry cell.

Kinetic and stoichiometric characterization of organoautotrophic growth of Ralstonia eutropha on formic acid in fed-batch and continuous cultures.

Formic acid, acting as both carbon and energy source, is a safe alternative to a carbon dioxide, hydrogen and dioxygen mix for studying the conversion of carbon through the Calvin–Benson–Bassham (CBB) cycle into value‐added chemical compounds by non‐photosynthetic microorganisms. In this work, organoautotrophic growth of Ralstonia eutropha on formic acid was studied using an approach combining stoichiometric modeling and controlled cultures in bioreactors. A strain deleted of its polyhydroxyalkanoate production pathway was used in order to carry out a physiological characterization. The maximal growth yield was determined at 0.16 Cmole Cmole−1 in a formate‐limited continuous culture. The measured yield corresponded to 76% to 85% of the theoretical yield (later confirmed in pH‐controlled fed‐batch cultures). The stoichiometric study highlighted the imbalance between carbon and energy provided by formic acid and explained the low growth yields measured. Fed‐batch cultures were also used to determine the maximum specific growth rate (μmax = 0.18 h−1) and to study the impact of increasing formic acid concentrations on growth yields. High formic acid sensitivity was found in R eutropha since a linear decrease in the biomass yield with increasing residual formic acid concentrations was observed between 0 and 1.5 g l−1.

Size exclusion chromatography—An improved method to harvest Corynebacterium glutamicum cells for the analysis of cytosolic metabolites

The efficient separation of Corynebacterium glutamicum cells from culture medium by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) is presented. Residue analysis demonstrated that this method effectively depletes extracellular compounds. For evaluation, SEC was compared with the common methods cold methanol treatment, fast centrifugation and fast filtration. For this purpose, samples of C. glutamicum cells from fermenter cultures were harvested and subjected to a metabolome analysis. In particular, the wild type strain C. glutamicum ATCC13032 and the lysine production strain C. glutamicum DM1730 were grown in a minimal or in a complex medium. Comparison of metabolite pool sizes after harvesting C. glutamicum cells by the methods mentioned above by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) revealed that SEC is the most suitable method when intracellular metabolite pools are to be measured during growth in complex media or in the presence of significant amounts of secreted metabolites. In contrast to the other methods tested, the SEC method turned out to be fast and able to remove extracellular compounds almost completely.