Engineering Escherichia coli for efficient cellobiose utilization

Escherichia coli normally cannot utilize the β-glucoside sugar cellobiose as a carbon and energy source unless a stringent selection pressure for survival is present. The cellobiose-utilization phenotype can be conferred by mutations in the two cryptic operons, chb and asc. In this study, the cellobiose-utilization phenotype was conferred to E. coli by replacing the cryptic promoters of these endogenous operons with a constitutive promoter. Evolutionary adaptation of the engineered strain CP12CHBASC by repeated subculture in cellobiose-containing minimal medium led to an increase in the rate of cellobiose uptake and cell growth on cellobiose. An efficient cellobiose-metabolizing E. coli strain would be of great importance over glucose-metabolizing E. coli for a simultaneous saccharification and fermentation process, as the cost of the process would be reduced by eliminating one of the three enzymes needed to hydrolyze cellulose into simple sugars.