Improving 3-dehydroshikimate production by metabolically engineered Escherichia coli

Abstract:

In the aromatic amino acid biosynthetic pathway 3-dehydroshikimate (DHS) is a key intermediate. As a potent antioxidant and important feedstock for producing a variety of important industrial chemicals, such as adipate and vanillin, DHS is of great commercial value. Here, in this study, we investigated the effect of the co-expression of aroFFBR (3-deoxy-D-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate synthase mutant with tyrosine feedback-inhibition resistance) and tktA (Transketolase A) at different copy number on the production of DHS. The increased copy number of aroFFBR and tktA would enhance the production of DHS by the fold of 2.93. In order to further improve the production of DHS, we disrupted the key genes in by-product pathways of the parent strain Escherichia coli AB2834. The triple knockout strain of ldhA, ackA-pta and adhE would further increase the production of DHS. The titer of DHS in shake flask reached 1.83 g/L, 5.7-fold higher than that of the parent strain E. coli AB2834. In 5-L fed-batch fermentation, the metabolically engineered strain produced 25.48 g/L DHS after 62 h. Mtabolically engineered E. coli has the potential to further improve the production of DHS.