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Scientists Successfully Synthesize Terpenoids with Microbial Consortium

Mar 29, 2022 | By ZHAO Weiwei; WANG Peng

According to a research published in Microbial Cell Factories, a research team by Prof. ZHENG Zhiming and associate Prof. WANG Peng from Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) successfully enhanced the synthesis ability of terpenoids with newly developed microbial consortia.

The scientific research team used E. coli as the precursor substrate donor to design and optimize the consortium of E. meningoseptica and E. coli so as to achieve their goal.

"The E. meningoseptica and E. coli co-culture strategy can improve vitamin K2 biosynthesis," said WANG Peng.

The application of microbial consortia is a hot spot in the fields of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. As a kind of terpenoid, vitamin K2 has important physiological functions, such as preventing osteoporosis and promoting blood coagulation. E. meningoseptica is an important strain for synthesizing vitamin K2 with different lengths of side chains, but this strain lacks molecular manipulation means and is difficult to carry out directional transformation.

By introducing the mevalonate pathway and isopentenyltransferase genes in E. meningoseptica into E. coli, the team constructed a microbial consortium of E. meningoseptica and E. coli, which was approximately threefold more than the titer achieved with E. meningoseptica sp. F2 monoculture.

Further study about consortium the proved that the cocultured strains were closely connected, the lipase activity and membrane permeability were improved, and material exchange between bacteria was realized.

This study lays the foundation for the further application of E. meningoseptica and E. coli consortia for the biosynthesis of MK-n (n=4, 5, 6, 7, 8) and other terpenoids.

This work was sponsored by financial support from the China National Key Research and Development Programme, Major Projects of Science and Technology of Anhui Province, Key Research and Development Plan of Anhui Province.

Fig. 1. Design of the Elizabethkingia meningoseptica and Escherichia coli coculture system for vitamin K2 biosynthesis. (Image by WANG Peng)

 

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