Activation of glyoxylate pathway without the activation of its related gene in succinate-producing engineered Escherichia coli

For the first time, glyoxylate pathway in the biosynthesis of succinate was activated without the genetic manipulations of any gene related with glyoxylate pathway. Furthermore, the inactivation of succinate biosynthesis by-products genes encoding acetate kinase (ackA) and phosphotransacetylase (pta) was proven to be the key factor to activate glyoxylate pathway in the metabolically engineered Escherichia coli under anaerobic conditions. In order to enhance the succinate biosynthesis specifically, the genes (i.e., ldhA, ptsG, ackA-pta, focA-pflB, adhE) that disrupt by-products biosynthesis pathways were combinatorially deleted, while the E. coli malate dehydrogenase (MDH) was overexpression. The highest succinate production of 150.78 mM was obtained with YJ003 (ΔldhA, ptsG, ackA-pta), which were 5-folds higher than that obtained with wild type control strain DY329 (25.13 mM). For further understand the metabolic response as a result of several genetic manipulations, an anaerobic stoichiometric model that takes into account the glyoxylate pathway have successfully been implemented to estimate the intracellular fluxes in various recombinant E. coli. The fraction to the glyoxylate pathway from OAA in DY329 was 0 and 31% in YJ003, which indicated that even without the absence of the iclR mutation; the glyoxylate pathway was also activated by deleting the by-products biosynthetic genes, and to be responsible for the higher succinate yields. For further strengthen glyoxylate pathway, a two-stage fed-batch fermentation process was developed by using a 600 g l−1 glucose feed to achieve a cell growth rate of 0.07 h−1 in aerobic fermentation, and using a 750 g l−1 glucose feed to maintain the residual glucose concentration around 40 g l−1 when its residual level decreased to 10 g l−1 in anaerobic fermentation. The best mutant strain YJ003/pTrc99A-mdh produces final succinate concentration of 274 mM by fed-batch culture, which was 10-folds higher than that obtained with wild type control strain DY329. This study discovered that glyoxylate pathway could be activated by deleting glyoxylate pathway irrelevant genes (i.e., genes encoding acetate and lactate) and consequently the succinate biosynthesis was effectively improved. This work provides useful information for the modification of metabolic pathway to improve succinate production.