大肠杆菌ppsA和tktA基因的串联表达

ppsA和tktA是芳香族氨基酸生物合成中心途径的两个关键酶基因，在大肠杆菌中，ppsA基因编码磷酸烯醇式丙酮酸合成酶A(PpsA)，该酶催化丙酮酸合成磷酸烯醇式丙酮酸；tktA基因编码转酮酶A，该酶在磷酸戊糖途径中生成4-磷酸赤藓糖起主要作用。采用PCR方法从大肠杆菌K-12株中扩增到ppsA和tktA，并实现了两基因的高效表达，其中ppsA活性提高了10．8倍，tktA活性提高了3．9倍，当这两个基因串联在一个质粒上导入大肠杆菌进行表达时，PpsA的活性变化较大(2．1～9．1倍)，TktA的活性相对稳定(3．9～4．5倍)，且这两个基因单独表达和串联表达都能使芳香族氨基酸生物合成共同途径中关键中间产物DAHP的产量提高，且串联表达比单独表达较高。

Co-expressions of Phosphoenolpyruvate Synthetase A(ppsA)and Transketolase A (tktA) Genes of Escherichia coli

Metabolic engineering is the analysis of metabolic pathway and designing rational genetic modification to optimize cellular properties by using principle of molecular biology. Aromatic metabolites such as tryptophan, phenylalanine, and tyrosine are essential amino acids for human and animals. In addition, phenylalanine is used in aspartame production. Escherichia coli and many other microoganism synthesize aromatic amino acids through the condensation reaction between phospho-enolpyruvate (PEP) and erythrose-4-phosphate(E4P) to form 3-deoxy-D-arabinoheptulosonate 7-phosphate(DAHP). But many enzymes compete for intracellular PEP, especially the phosphotransferase system which is responsible for glucose transport in E. coli. This system uses PEP as a phosphate donor and converts it to pyruvate, which is less likely to recycle back to PEP. To channel more carbon flux into the aromatic pathway, one has to overcome pathways competing for PEP. ppsA and tktA are the key genes in central metabolism of aromatic amino acids biosynthesis. ppsA encoding phosphoenolpyrucate synthetase A (PpsA) which catalyzes pyruvate into PEP; tktA encoding transketolase A which plays a major role in erythrose-4-phosphate (E4P) production of pentose pathway. We amplified ppsA and tktA from E. coli K-12 by PCR and constructed recombinant plasmids of them in pBV220 vector containing P(R)P(L) promoter. Because of each gene carrying P(L) promoter, four productions of ligation were obtained. The monoclonal host containing recombinant plasmids was routinely grown in Luria-Bertani (LB) medium added Ampicillin at 37 degrees C overnight, and then inoculated in LB (Apr) medium by 3%-5% in flasks on a rotary shaker at 30 degres C, induced at 42 degrees C for 4.5 hours when OD600 = 0.4, cells were obtained by centrifugation at 10,000 r/min at 4 degrees C. The results of SDS-PAGE demonstrated that the bands at 84kD and 73kD were more intensive than the same ones of the controls. The specific activity of PpsA in crude extracts was increased by 10.8-fold, and TktA, by 3.9-fold. When both genes were co-expressed in E. coli, the activity of PpsA varied from 2.1-9.1 fold comparing to control, but the activity of TktA was relatively stable(3.9-4.5 fold). Whatever the two genes were expressed respectively or cooperatively, both could promote the production of DAHP, the first intermediate of the common aromatic pathway, but co-expression was more effective on forming DAHP. The results demonstrate that co-expression of ppsA and tktA can improve the production of DAHP to near theoretical yield. This report details a different strategy based on co-expression of two genes in one vector in vivo to release the burden and paves the way for construction of genetic engineering bacteria for further research.