Engineering the lactococcal mevalonate pathway for increased sesquiterpene production. Issue 2 (4th June 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Song, Adelene A.; Ong Abdullah, Janna; Abdullah, Mohd. P.; Shafee, Norazizah; Othman, Roohaida; Noor, Normah Mohd.; Rahim, Raha A.
• Is Part Of: FEMS microbiology letters. Volume 355:Issue 2(2014:Jun.)
• Page Start: 177
• Page End: 184
• Publication Date: 2014-06-04
• Subjects: Microbiology -- Periodicals; 579
• DOI: 10.1111/1574-6968.12469
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0378-1097

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="fml12469-abs-0001"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>Isoprenoids are a large, diverse group of secondary metabolites which has recently raised a renewed research interest due to genetic engineering advances, allowing specific isoprenoids to be produced and characterized in heterologous hosts. Many researches on metabolic engineering of heterologous hosts for increased isoprenoid production are focussed on <italic>Escherichia coli</italic> and yeasts. <italic>E. coli</italic>, as most prokaryotes, use the 2‐C‐methyl‐<sc>d</sc>‐erythritol‐4‐phosphate (MEP) pathway for isoprenoid production. Yeasts on the other hand, use the mevalonate pathway which is commonly found in eukaryotes. However, <italic>Lactococcus lactis</italic> is an attractive alternative host for heterologous isoprenoid production. Apart from being food‐grade, this Gram‐positive prokaryote uses the mevalonate pathway for isoprenoid production instead of the MEP pathway. Previous studies have shown that <italic>L. lactis</italic> is able to produce sesquiterpenes through heterologous expression of plant sesquiterpene synthases. In this work, we analysed the gene expression of the lactococcal mevalonate pathway through RT‐qPCR to successfully engineer <italic>L. lactis</italic> as an efficient host for isoprenoid production. We then overexpressed the <italic>mvk</italic> gene singly or co‐expressed with the <italic>mvaA</italic> gene as an attempt to increase β‐sesquiphellandrene production in <italic>L. lactis</italic>. It was observed that co‐expression of <italic>mvk</italic> with <italic>mvaA</italic> doubled the amount of β‐sesquiphellandrene produced.</p> </abstract>