Metabolic Engineering of Escherichia coli for the Production of Industrial Platform Chemicals

Abstract

In this study, a novel metabolic pathway was designed for the production of industrial platform chemicalsincluding fumaric, 3-aminopropionic, and 3-hydroxypropionic acid.Firstly, rational metabolic engineering together with flux optimization were performed for the development ofan E. coli strain capable of efficiently producing fumaric acid. Using a fumaric acid producing E. coli strain asa host, the C. glutamicum panD gene (encoding L-aspartate-α-decarboxylase) was overexpressed and the nativepromoter of the aspA gene was replaced with the strong trc promoter, which allowed efficient production of3-aminopropionic acid. Additionally, metabolic pathway was extended by introducing beta alanine pyruvatetransaminase and malonic semialdehyde reductase to produce 3-hydroxypropionic acid from 3-aminopropionicacid. Finally, fed-batch fermentations were performed for mass production of target products using developedstrains in this study. (This work was supported by Development of systems metabolic engineering platformtechnologies for biorefineries; funded by the Ministry of Education,Science and Technology)