微生物合成鼠李糖脂的高产优化策略研究进展

鼠李糖脂是当前研究和应用最热门的生物表面活性剂之一,广泛应用于石油开采、环境修复、农业等领域。与化学表面活性剂相比,鼠李糖脂较低的合成产量导致其生产成本相对较高,限制了鼠李糖脂的大规模推广应用。因此,开展鼠李糖脂的高产优化调控研究,对于推动鼠李糖脂的研究与应用具有重要意义。本文简要介绍了鼠李糖脂的生物合成与影响因素;重点综述了鼠李糖脂的高产菌株选育、异源合成、代谢途径调控、发酵优化等高产优化策略研究进展,分析了各种高产优化策略的优缺点,并对当前鼠李糖脂高产优化研究提出了一些思考与展望。     

铜绿假单胞菌中鼠李糖脂生物合成的研究进展*

鼠李糖脂因其具有环境友好和卓越的物理化学特性,而有望成为化学合成表面活性剂的替代物。近年来鼠李糖脂得到了广泛的研究,其目的是利用低价的可再生资源进行大规模生产,但目前的研究成果仍不足以选育出更具商业竞争力的鼠李糖脂过量合成菌株。为此,进一步理解鼠李糖脂生物合成的复杂基因调控网络,探索降低生产成本的发酵工艺势在必行。综述了铜绿假单胞菌中鼠李糖脂的生物合成途径、群体感应对主要基因的调控、鼠李糖脂在生物膜形成中所发挥的作用,以及发酵优化对鼠李糖脂产量的影响。有助于加深对鼠李糖脂生物合成的认识,为提高鼠李糖脂产量提供重要参考信息。     

铜绿假单胞菌中鼠李糖脂生物合成的研究进展*

鼠李糖脂因其具有环境友好和卓越的物理化学特性,而有望成为化学合成表面活性剂的替代物。近年来鼠李糖脂得到了广泛的研究,其目的是利用低价的可再生资源进行大规模生产,但目前的研究成果仍不足以选育出更具商业竞争力的鼠李糖脂过量合成菌株。为此,进一步理解鼠李糖脂生物合成的复杂基因调控网络,探索降低生产成本的发酵工艺势在必行。综述了铜绿假单胞菌中鼠李糖脂的生物合成途径、群体感应对主要基因的调控、鼠李糖脂在生物膜形成中所发挥的作用,以及发酵优化对鼠李糖脂产量的影响。有助于加深对鼠李糖脂生物合成的认识,为提高鼠李糖脂产量提供重要参考信息。     

9株海洋来源铜绿假单胞菌合成鼠李糖脂的比较分析

目的:从海洋来源的铜绿假单胞菌中筛选多株具有鼠李糖脂合成能力的菌株。方法:以9株分离自不同海洋环境的铜绿假单胞菌为研究对象,考察并比较其发酵合成鼠李糖脂生物表面活性剂的表面活性、产量和产物成分的差异,扩增并比对合成途径中的关键基因。结果:9株菌的发酵产物均具有表面活性,其中菌株1A01151发酵液的表面活性最强,表面张力值可降低至28 m N/m;9株菌的基因组中均含有鼠李糖脂合成途径中关键基因rhl AB和rhl C,都具有合成单、双鼠李糖脂的能力;菌株1A01151和1A00364的发酵产量最高(2.69 g/L),产物经LC-MS/MS检测,所合成的鼠李糖脂同系物组分不同,双糖双脂的含量最高(1A01151:75.96%;1A00364:61.01%)。结论:海洋来源的铜绿假单胞菌是具有鼠李糖脂高产潜力的菌株,可用于合成性能不同、组成多样的鼠李糖脂生物表面活性剂。     

响应曲面法优化铜绿假单胞菌DN1的产鼠李糖脂条件

鼠李糖脂是近年来具有广阔应用前景的生物表面活性剂之一,因应用范围广和环境友好等特点,使其成为潜在的合成表面活性剂的替代品。本研究以一株能产生鼠李糖脂的铜绿假单胞菌(Pseudomonas aeruginosa)DN1为研究对象,采用Plackett-Burman设计和响应曲面方法(RSM)对其产鼠李糖脂的发酵条件进行优化。Plackett-Burman试验设计表明,磷酸盐、C/N比和p H值对鼠李糖脂的产量具有显著影响。在此基础上,采用RSM对3个显著因素的最佳水平范围进行研究,结果表明当磷酸盐为1.71 g/L、C/N比为15.5、p H值为6.5时,其理论最佳鼠李糖脂产量为40.4 g/L,与实测鼠李糖脂产量39.84 g/L非常接近。摇瓶优化后的鼠李糖脂产量较优化前的22.9 g/L提高了73.97%。     

产鼠李糖脂生物表面活性剂大肠杆菌的构建与优化

目前鼠李糖脂生物表面活性剂主要由条件致病的铜绿假单胞菌生产获得,从而影响工业应用。为了开发一种相对安全的鼠李糖脂生产菌,将带有不同强度组成型合成启动子的鼠李糖基转移酶基因(Rhamnosyltransferase gene,rhl AB)以单、中、高3种拷贝数分别在大肠杆菌ATCC 8739中异源表达,实现了不同产量的鼠李糖脂异源合成。对rhl AB基因和rha BDAC基因簇(TDP-L-鼠李糖合成的基因簇)进一步利用合成启动子进行组合调控,筛选获得了最优生产鼠李糖脂工程菌——大肠杆菌TIB-RAB226。对大肠杆菌TIB-RAB226进行发酵温度优化,鼠李糖脂产量达到124.3 mg/L,是优化前的1.17倍。通过分批补料发酵,12h时鼠李糖脂产量达到209.2 mg/L。对发酵产物进行高效液相色谱-质谱联用技术分析,共检出相对含量变化的5类质核比不同的鼠李糖脂同系物。本研究可为异源合成产鼠李糖脂提供重要参考。     

鼠李糖脂的表面化学和生物合成及其在垃圾堆肥中的应用展望

鼠李糖脂是生物表面活性剂中一类非常重要而应用广泛的微生物发酵产物,在环境污染修复中需求量越来越多。针对近十年来国内外对鼠李糖脂生物表面活性剂的研究,较系统地总结了其化学结构、性质、生物合成机理及产量调节方法,及大规模生产鼠李糖脂的基础研究工作,并对其在城市生活垃圾堆肥中的应用做了展望。     

铜绿假单胞菌高产鼠李糖脂菌株的筛选

从多种来源筛选高产鼠李糖脂的菌株,并研究菌种发酵特性和鼠李糖脂产物的理化性质。采用CTAB平板初步筛选鼠李糖脂合成菌株,通过分析菌株的16S r RNA基因序列确定细菌种属,采用薄层色谱、红外光谱分析产物性质。结果显示,利用CTAB平板初筛获得163株阳性菌株,初步发酵确定10株高产细菌鼠李糖脂的产量为12.2-17.7 g/L,10株细菌均鉴定为铜绿假单胞菌。挑选产量最高的菌株B12,分别以甘油、菜籽油、花生饼粉或葵花籽饼粉为碳源进行发酵,发现菜籽油为合成鼠李糖脂的最佳碳源。进一步对比在35℃、37℃和40℃的发酵水平,发现37℃条件下鼠李糖脂产量最高,为26.8 g/L。最后,对鼠李糖脂发酵产物进行了初步纯化,并进行了薄层色谱和红外光谱分析。菌株B12能够合成较高水平的鼠李糖脂,可能成为工业生产的候选菌株。     

脂肽-糖脂混合生物表面活性剂产生菌筛选和优化培养

结合脂肽和糖脂的性能优势,致力于产脂肽-鼠李糖脂混合型生物表面活性剂的新菌株选育和培养条件优化。采用血平板溶血圈法初筛菌株、改进排油圈法快速检测产量以及飞行时间质谱鉴定产物结构。对优选菌株的碳源、氮源和磷酸盐缓冲液、重要金属离子浓度等进行了单因子和正交试验,优化了培养基和培养条件。采用高压液相色谱和蒽酮比色法定量分析了产物组成。筛选获得了同时积累糖脂和脂肽的新菌株,鉴定命名为芽胞杆菌Bacillus subtilis THY-7。摇瓶分批培养48 h,细胞OD600为37.0,产物浓度2.4 g/L,分别是优化前的3.4倍和3.1倍。发酵罐补料分批培养,泡沫中产物浓度达到4.5 g/L,且74％为表面活性素,22％为鼠李糖脂。B. subtilis THY-7是具有脂肽-鼠李糖脂高产潜力的优选菌株。     

鼠李糖脂生物表面活性剂的研究进展

鼠李糖脂是一种重要的生物表面活性剂。综述了鼠李糖脂生物表面活性剂的化学结构、特性、生理学功能及其发酵生产,特别讨论了利用廉价原料——工农业的废物,如植物油废渣等来生产鼠李糖脂,其不仅可降低生产成本,还能减少工农业废渣对环境的污染,降低其处理费用。     

CRISPR interference–mediated metabolic engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum for homo‐butyrate production

Combinatorial metabolic engineering enabled the development of efficient microbial cell factories for modulating gene expression to produce desired products. Here, we report the combinatorial metabolic engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum to produce butyrate by introducing a synthetic butyrate pathway including phosphotransferase and butyrate kinase reactions and repressing the essential acn gene‐encoding aconitase, which has been targeted for downregulation in a genome‐scale model. An all‐in‐one clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats interference system for C. glutamicum was used for tunable downregulation of acn in an engineered strain, where by‐product‐forming reactions were deleted and the synthetic butyrate pathway was inserted, resulting in butyrate production (0.52 ± 0.02 g/L). Subsequently, biotin limitation enabled the engineered strain to produce butyrate (0.58 ± 0.01 g/L) without acetate formation for the entire duration of the culture. These results demonstrate the potential homo‐production of butyrate using engineered C. glutamicum. This method can also be applied to other industrial microorganisms.     

Foreign Peptides Expressed in Engineered Chimeric Self Molecules

Quorum sensing (QS) has received significant attention in the past few decades. QS describes population density dependent cell to cell communication in bacteria using diffusible signal molecules. These signal molecules produced by bacterial cells, regulate various physiological processes important for social behavior and pathogenesis. One such process regulated by quorum sensing molecules is the production of a biosurfactant, rhamnolipid. Rhamnolipids are important microbially derived surface active agents produced by Pseudomonas spp. under the control of two interrelated quorum sensing systems; namely las and rhl. Rhamnolipids possess antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral properties. They are important in motility, cell to cell interactions, cellular differentiation and formation of water channels that Currently, biosurfactants are unable to compete economically with chemically synthesized compounds in the market due to high production costs. Once the genes required for biosurfactant production have been identified, they can be placed under the regulation of strong promoters in nonpathogenic, heterologous hosts to enhance production. The production of rhamnolipids could be increased by cloning both the rhlAB rhamnosyltransferase genes and the rhlRI quorum sensing system into a suitable bacterium such as E. coli or P. putida and facilitate rhamnolipid production. Biosurfactants can also be genetically engineered for different industrial applications assuming there is a strong understanding of both the genetics and the structure-function relationships of each component of the molecule. Genetic engineering of surfactin has already been reported, with recent papers describing the creation of novel peptide structures from the genetic recombination of several peptide synthetases. Recent application of dynamic metabolic engineering strategies for controlled gene expression could lower the cost of fermentation processes by increasing the product formation. Therefore, by integrating a genetic circuit into applications of metabolic engineering the biochemical production can be optimized. Furthermore, novel strategies could be designed on the basis of information obtained from the studies of quorum sensing and biosurfactants produced suggesting enormous practical applications.     

Regulatory and metabolic network of rhamnolipid biosynthesis: Traditional and advanced engineering towards biotechnological production

During the last decade, the demand for economical and sustainable bioprocesses replacing petrochemical-derived products has significantly increased. Rhamnolipids are interesting biosurfactants that might possess a broad industrial application range. However, despite of 60 years of research in the area of rhamnolipid production, the economic feasibility of these glycolipids is pending. Although the biosynthesis and regulatory network are in a big part known, the actual incidents on the cellular and process level during bioreactor cultivation are not mastered. Traditional engineering by random and targeted genetic alteration, process design, and recombinant strategies did not succeed by now. For enhanced process development, there is an urgent need of in-depth information about the rhamnolipid production regulation during bioreactor cultivation to design knowledge-based genetic and process engineering strategies. Rhamnolipids are structurally comparable, simple secondary metabolites and thus have the potential to become instrumental in future secondary metabolite engineering by systems biotechnology. This review summarizes current knowledge about the regulatory and metabolic network of rhamnolipid synthesis and discusses traditional and advanced engineering strategies performed for rhamnolipid production improvement focusing on Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Finally, the opportunities of applying the systems biotechnology toolbox on the whole-cell biocatalyst and bioprocess level for further rhamnolipid production optimization are discussed.     

Synthetic Biology Toolkits for Metabolic Engineering of Cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria are of great importance to Earth's ecology. Due to their capability in photosynthesis and C1 metabolism, they are ideal microbial chassis that can be engineered for direct conversion of carbon dioxide and solar energy into biofuels and biochemicals. Facilitated by the elucidation of the basic biology of the photoautotrophic microbes and rapid advances in synthetic biology, genetic toolkits have been developed to enable implementation of nonnatural functionalities in engineered cyanobacteria. Hence, cyanobacteria are fast becoming an emerging platform in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. Herein, the progress made in the synthetic biology toolkits for cyanobacteria and their utilization for transforming cyanobacteria into microbial cell factories for sustainable production of biofuels and biochemicals is outlined. Current techniques in heterologous gene expression, strategies in genome editing, and development of programmable regulatory parts and modules for engineering cyanobacteria towards biochemical production are discussed and prospected. As cyanobacteria synthetic biology is still in its infancy, apart from the achievements made, the difficulties and challenges in applying and developing genetic toolkits in cyanobacteria for biochemical production are also evaluated.     

The synthetic integron: an in vivo genetic shuffling device

As the field of synthetic biology expands, strategies and tools for the rapid construction of new biochemical pathways will become increasingly valuable. Purely rational design of complex biological pathways is inherently limited by the current state of our knowledge. Selection of optimal arrangements of genetic elements from randomized libraries may well be a useful approach for successful engineering. Here, we propose the construction and optimization of metabolic pathways using the inherent gene shuffling activity of a natural bacterial site-specific recombination system, the integron. As a proof of principle, we constructed and optimized a functional tryptophan biosynthetic operon in Escherichia coli. The trpA-E genes along with ‘regulatory’ elements were delivered as individual recombination cassettes in a synthetic integron platform. Integrase-mediated recombination generated thousands of genetic combinations overnight. We were able to isolate a large number of arrangements displaying varying fitness and tryptophan production capacities. Several assemblages required as many as six recombination events and produced as much as 11-fold more tryptophan than the natural gene order in the same context.     

OP-Synthetic: identification of optimal genetic manipulations for the overproduction of native and non-native metabolites

Constraint-based flux analysis has been widely used in metabolic engineering to predict genetic optimization strategies. These methods seek to find genetic manipulations that maximally couple the desired metabolites with the cellular growth objective. However, such framework does not work well for overproducing chemicals that are not closely correlated with biomass, for example non-native biochemical production by introducing synthetic pathways into heterologous host cells. Here, we present a computational method called OP-Synthetic, which can identify effective manipulations (upregulation, downregulation and deletion of reactions) and produce a step-by-step optimization strategy for the overproduction of indigenous and non-native chemicals. We compared OP-Synthetic with several state-of-the-art computational approaches on the problems of succinate overproduction and N-acetylneuraminic acid synthetic pathway optimization in Escherichia coli. OP-Synthetic showed its advantage for efficiently handling multiple steps optimization problems on genome wide metabolic networks. And more importantly, the optimization strategies predicted by OP-Synthetic have a better match with existing engineered strains, especially for the engineering of synthetic metabolic pathways for non-native chemical production. OP-Synthetic is freely available at:http://bioinfo.au.tsinghua.edu.cn/member/xwwang/OPSynthetic/.     

High-efficiency production of bisabolene from waste cooking oil by metabolically engineered Yarrowia lipolytica

The natural plant product bisabolene serves as a precursor for the production of a wide range of industrially relevant chemicals. However, the low abundance of bisabolene in plants renders its isolation from plant sources non-economically viable. Therefore, creation of microbial cell factories for bisabolene production supported by synthetic biology and metabolic engineering strategies presents a more competitive and environmentally sustainable method for industrial production of bisabolene. In this proof-of-principle study, for the first time, we engineered the oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica to produce α-bisabolene, β-bisabolene and γ-bisabolene through heterologous expression of the α-bisabolene synthase from Abies grandis, the β-bisabolene synthase gene from Zingiber officinale and the γ-bisabolene synthase gene from Helianthus annuus respectively. Subsequently, two metabolic engineering approaches, including overexpression of the endogenous mevalonate pathway genes and introduction of heterologous multidrug efflux transporters, were employed in order to improve bisabolene production. Furthermore, the fermentation conditions were optimized to maximize bisabolene production by the engineered Y. lipolytica strains from glucose. Finally, we explored the potential of the engineered Y. lipolytica strains for bisabolene production from the waste cooking oil. To our knowledge, this is the first report of bisabolene production in Y. lipolytica using metabolic engineering strategies. These findings provide valuable insights into the engineering of Y. lipolytica for a higher-level production of bisabolene and its utilization in converting waste cooking oil into various industrially valuable products.     

Systems Metabolic Engineering Strategies for Non‐Natural Microbial Polyester Production

Plastics, used everyday, are mostly synthetic polymers derived from fossil resources, and their accumulation is becoming a serious concern worldwide. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are naturally produced polyesters synthesized and intracellularly accumulated by many different microorganisms. PHAs are good alternatives to petroleum‐based plastics because they possess a wide range of material properties depending on monomer types and molecular weights. In addition, PHAs are biodegradable and can be produced from renewable biomass. Thus, producing PHAs through the development of high‐performance engineered microorganisms and efficient bioprocesses gained much interest. In addition, non‐natural polyesters comprising 2‐hydroxycarboxylic acids as monomers have been produced by fermentation of metabolically engineered bacteria. For example, poly(lactic acid) and poly(lactic acid‐co‐glycolic acid), which have been chemically synthesized using the corresponding monomers either fermentatively or chemically produced, can be produced by metabolically engineered bacteria by one‐step fermentation. Recently, PHAs containing aromatic monomers could be produced by fermentation of metabolically engineered bacteria. Here, metabolic engineering strategies applied in developing microbial strains capable of producing non‐natural polyesters in a stepwise manner are reviewed. It is hoped that the detailed strategies described will be helpful for designing metabolic engineering strategies for developing diverse microbial strains capable of producing various polymers that can replace petroleum‐derived polymers.     

Bioproduction of L-piperazic acid in gram scale using Aureobasidium melanogenum

Currently, piperazic acid is chemically synthesized using ecologically unfriendly processes. Microbial synthesis from glucose is an attractive alternative to chemical synthesis. In this study, we report the production of L-piperazic acid via microbial fermentation with the first engineered fungal strain of Aureobasidium melanogenum; this strain was constructed by chassis development, genetic element reconstitution and optimization, synthetic rewiring and constitutive genetic circuit reconstitution, to build a robust L-piperazic acid synthetic cascade. These genetic modifications enable A. melanogenum to directly convert glucose to L-piperazic acid without relying on the use of either chemically synthesized precursors or harsh conditions. This bio-based process overcomes the shortcomings of the conventional synthesis routes. The ultimately engineered strain is a very high-efficient cell factory that can excrete 1.12 ± 0.05 g l^-1 of L-piperazic acid after a 120-h 10.0-l fed-batch fermentation; this is the highest titre of L-piperazic acid reported using a microbial cell factory.     

Identification of line‐specific strategies for improving carotenoid production in synthetic maize through data‐driven mathematical modeling

Plant synthetic biology is still in its infancy. However, synthetic biology approaches have been used to manipulate and improve the nutritional and health value of staple food crops such as rice, potato and maize. With current technologies, production yields of the synthetic nutrients are a result of trial and error, and systematic rational strategies to optimize those yields are still lacking. Here, we present a workflow that combines gene expression and quantitative metabolomics with mathematical modeling to identify strategies for increasing production yields of nutritionally important carotenoids in the seed endosperm synthesized through alternative biosynthetic pathways in synthetic lines of white maize, which is normally devoid of carotenoids. Quantitative metabolomics and gene expression data are used to create and fit parameters of mathematical models that are specific to four independent maize lines. Sensitivity analysis and simulation of each model is used to predict which gene activities should be further engineered in order to increase production yields for carotenoid accumulation in each line. Some of these predictions (e.g. increasing Zmlycb/Gllycb will increase accumulated β‐carotenes) are valid across the four maize lines and consistent with experimental observations in other systems. Other predictions are line specific. The workflow is adaptable to any other biological system for which appropriate quantitative information is available. Furthermore, we validate some of the predictions using experimental data from additional synthetic maize lines for which no models were developed.