• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.4 no.4
• /
• pp.285-289
• /
• 1994

An insecticidal crystal protein gene, cryIA(c), from Bacillus thuringiensis HD-73 was integrated into the chromosome of a xanthan-producing bacterium, Xanthomonas campestris XP92. The cryIA(c) gene expression cassette was constructed that placed the gene between the trc promoter and rrnB transcriptional terminator. The $lacl^q$ gene was also included to prevent the expression of cryIA(c) gene in X campestris cells. Southem blot analysis confirmed the integration of the cryIA(c) gene expression cassette in chromosome of X campestris XP92 transconjugant. Expression of the insecticidal crystal protein was confirmed by Western blot analysis and bioassay against the larvae of Hyphantria cunea (Lepidoptera： Arctiidae) and Plutella xylostella (Lepidoptera：Plutellidae).

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.288-296
• /
• 1995

To investigate high-level expression of Serratia marcescens metalloprotease (SMP) in Escherichia coli and S. marcescens, we constructed various recombinant plasmids: pSP2, containing SMP gene and lac promoter; pKSP2, containing SMP gene and tac promoter; pTSP2, containing SMP gene, trc99a promoter, and lacI$^{q}$. The recombinant E. coli (pKSP2) strain expressed SMP to a high-level, about 36% of total cellular proteins but accumulated inactive SMP precursors intracellularly, which indicated that E. coli does not have activation and secretion system for SMP. To overproduce active SMP, we transformed S. marcescens with the recombinant plasmids by a modified CaCl$_{2}$ method. The recombinant S. marcescens ATCC27117 (pSP2) containing lac promoter for SMP transcription produced 530 U/ml of active SMP on LB broth, which is about 5.1 times of the SMP yield, 105 U/ml of a control strain, S. marcescens ATCC27117 (pUC19). However, S. marcescens ATCC27117 (pKSP2) containing tac promoter for SMP transcription did not grow healthy and hardly produced SMP. To overcome a harmful effect of the strong tac promoter, we constructed a regulatory plasmid pTSP2 containing a strong trc99a promoter and its repressor gene lacI$^{q}$. When S. marcescens ATCC27117 (pTSP2) was induced with 1.0 mM IPTG after 9 hr cultivation, 2,200 U/ml of SMP was obtained in LB broth, which is about 21 times of that of a control strain.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.252-255
• /
• 2004

A pfl ldhA double mutant Escherichia coli strain NZN 111 was used to produce succinic acid by overexpressing the E. coli malic enzyme gene (sfcA). This strain, however, produced a large amount of malic acid as well as succinic acid. After the analyses of the metabolic pathways, the fumB gene encoding the anaerobic fumarase of E. coli was co-amplified to solve the problem of malic acid accumulation. A plasmid, pTrcMLFu, was constructed, which contains an artificial operon (sfcA-fumB) under the control of the inducible trc promoter. From the batch culture of recombinant E. coli NZN 111 harboring pTrcMLFu, 7 g/L of succinic acid was produced from 20 g/L of glucose, with no accumulation of malic acid. From the metabolic flux analysis the strain was found under reducing power limiting conditions by severe reorientation of metabolic fluxes.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.496-501
• /
• 2000

Escherichia cole NZN111, which is known as a pfl ldhA double mutant strin, was metabolically engineered to produce succinic acid by overexpressing malic enzyme into the E. coli controlled by a trc promoter. Fermentation studies were carried out in a LB medium by first growing cells aerobically to an $OD_{600}$ of 5. At this point, 0.01 mM IPTG was added to induce the overexpression of malic enzyme and the agitation speed was gradually lowered. When the culture $OD_{600}$ reached 11, a complete anaerobic condition was achieved by flushing with a $CO_3-H_2$ gas mixture. When NZN111(pTrcML) was cultured at $37^{\circ}C$, the final succinic acid concentration of 2.8 g/l could be obtained after 30 h of anaerobic cultivation. The fermentation results were analyzed by the calculation of metabolic fluxes. Metaolic flux analysis showed that about 85% of phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) was converted to pyruvate, and further converted to malic acid by malic enzyme.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Applied Microbiology Conference
• /
• 2001.06a
• /
• pp.141-145
• /
• 2001

Isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) is the common, five-carbon building block in the biosynthesis of all carotenoids. IPP in Escherichia coli is synthesized through the non-mevalonate pathway. The first reaction of IPP biosynthesis in E. coli is the formation of l-deoxy-D-xylulose-5-phosphate (DXP), catalyzed by DXP synthase and encoded by dxs. The second reaction in the pathway is the reduction of DXP to 2-C-methyl-D-erythritol-4-phosphate, catalyzed by DXP reductoisomerase and encoded by dxr. To determine if one or more of the reactions in the non-mevalonate pathway controlled flux to IPP, dxs and dxr were placed on several expression vectors under the control of three different promoters and transformed into three E. coli strains (DH5$\alpha$, XL1-Blue, and JMl0l) that had been engineered to produce lycopene. Lycopene production was improved significantly in strains transformed with the dxs expression vectors. When the dxs gene was expressed from the arabinose-inducible araBAD promoter ( $P_{BAD}$) on a medium-copy plasmid, lycopene production was 2-fold higher than when dxs was expressed from the IPTG-inducible trc and lac promoters ( $P_{trc}$ and $P_{lac}$, respectively) on medium-copy and high-copy plasmids. Given the low final densities of cells expressing dxs from IPTG-inducible promoters, the low lycopene production was probably due to the metabolic burden of plasmid maintenance and an excessive drain of central metabolic intermediates. At arabinose concentrations between 0 and 1.33 roM, cells expressing both dxs and dxr from $P_{BAD}$ on a medium-copy plasmid produced 1.4 - 2.0 times more lycopene than cells expressing dxs only. However, at higher arabinose concentrations lycopene . production in cells expressing both dxs and dxr was lower than in cells expressing dxs only. A comparison of the three E. coli strains transformed with the arabinose-inducible dxs on a medium-copy plasmid revealed that lycopene production was highest in XLI-Blue.LI-Blue.

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2000.10a
• /
• pp.128-135
• /
• 2000

The thiosulfate reductase gene (PhsABC) from Salmonella typhimurium was expressed in Escherichia coli in order to produce sulfide from inorganic thiosulfate and precipitate metals as metal sulfide complexes. A 5.1-kb DNA fragment containing the native phsABC and a 3.7-kb DNA fragment, excluding putative promoter and regulatory regions were inserted into expression vectors pTrc99A and pJB866, respectively. Upon expression of phsABC, E. coli DH5$\alpha$ harboring the phsABC constructs showed higher thiosulfate reductase activity and produced significantly more sulfide than the control strain (E. coli DH5$\alpha$) under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Among the four constructs, E. coli DH5$\alpha$ harboring pSB74 produced the highest level of thiosulfate reductase and removed most of heavy metals from solution under anaerobic conditions. In a mixture of 100 $\mu$M each of cadmium, lead, and zinc, the strain could remove $99\%$ of the total metals from solution within 10 hours. Cadmium was removed first, lead second, and zinc last. In contrast, a negative control did not produce any measurable sulfide and removed very little metals from solution. These results have important implications for removal of metals from wastewater contaminated with several metals.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.578-583
• /
• 2003

The desulfurization genes (dszABC) were cloned from Gordonia nitida. Nucleotide sequences similarity between the dszABC genes of G. nitida and those of Rhodococcus rhodochrous IGTS8 was 89%. The similarities of deduced amino acids between the two were 86% for DszA, 86% for DszB, and 90% for DszC. The G. nitida dszABC genes were expressed in several different Escherichia coli strains under an inducible trc promoter. Cultivation of these metabolically engineered E. coli strains in the presence of 0.2 mM dibenzothiophene (DBT) allowed the conversion of DBT to 2-hydroxybiphenyl (2-HBP), which is the final metabolite of the sulfur-specific desulfurization pathway. The maximum conversion of DBT to 2-HBP was 16% in 60 h. Recombinant E. coli was applied for the deep desulfurization of diesel oil supplemented into the medium at 5% (v/v). Sulfur content in diesel oil was decreased from 250 mg sulfur/1 to 212.5 mg sulfur/1, resulting in the removal of 15% of sulfur in diesel oil in 60 h.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.880-886
• /
• 2005

Using carotenoid genes of Erwinia herbicola, metabolic engineering was carried out for lycopene production with the pAC-LYCO4 plasmid, which was composed of a chromosomal DNA fragment of E. herbicola containing the crtE, crtB, and crtI genes under the control of the tetracycline promoter and the ipi gene of Haematococcus pluvialis with the trc promoter. Plasmid pAC-LYCm4 was constructed for efficient expression of the four exogenous genes using a strong RBS sequence and the same tetracycline promoter. The optimized expression construct of pAC-LYCm4 increased Iycopene production three times as compared with pAC-LYCO4. pAC-LYCm5 containing ispA behind the four exogenous genes was constructed. There was no significant difference in Iycopene production and cell growth between pAC-LYCm4 and pAC-LYCm5. FPP synthase encoded by ispA was not rate-limiting for Iycopene production. Each gene of crtE, crtB, crtI, and ipi was overexpressed, using pBAD-crtE, pBAD-crtIB, and pBAD-ipiHPI, in addition to their expression from pAC-LYCm4. However, there was no increase oflycopene production with the additional overexpression of each exogenous gene. The four exogenous genes appeared to be not rate-limiting in cells harboring pAC-LYCm4. When pDdxs, pBAD24 containing dxs, was introduced into cells harboring lycopene synthetic plasmids, lycopene production of pAC-LYCO4, pAC-LYCm4, and pAC-LYCm5 was increased by 4.7-, 2.2-, and 2.2-fold, respectively. Lycopene production of pBAD-DXm4 containing crtE, crtB, crtI, ipi, and dxs was 5.2 mg/g dry cell weight with $0.2\%$ arabinose, which was 8.7-fold higher than that of the initial strain with pAC-LYC04. Therefore, the present study showed that proper regulation of a metabolically engineered pathway is important for Iycopene production.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Life Science Conference
• /
• 2001.11a
• /
• pp.3-8
• /
• 2001

Isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) is the common, five-carbon building block in the biosynthesis of all carotenoids, IPP in Escherichia coli is synthesized through the non-mevalonate pathway. The first reaction of IPP biosynthesis in E. coli is the formation of 1-deoxy-D-xylulose-5-phosphate (DXP), catalyzed by DXP synthase and encoded by dxs. The second reaction in the pathway is the reduction of DXP to 2-C-methyl-D-erythritol-4-phosphate, catalyzed by DXP reductoisomerase and encoded by dxr. To determine if one or more of the reactions in the non-mevalonate pathway controlled flux to IPP, dxs and dxr were placed on several expression vectors under the control of three different promoters and transformed into three E. coli strains (DH5(, XL1-Blue, and JM101) that had been engineered to produce lycopene. Lycopene production was improved significantly in strains transformed with the dxs expression vectors. When the dxs gene was expressed from the arabinose-inducible araBAD promoter (PBAD) on a medium-copy plasmid, lycopene production was 2-fold higher than when dxs was expressed from the IPTG-inducible trc and lac promoters (Ptrc and Plac, respectively) on medium-copy and high-copy plasmids, Given the low final densities of cells expressing dxs from IPTG-inducible promoters, the low lycopene production was probably due to the metabolic burden of plasmid maintenance and an excessive drain of central metabolic intermediates. At arabinose concentrations between 0 and 1.33 mM, cells expressing both dxs and dxr from PBAD on a medium-copy plasmid produced 1.4 - 2.0 times more lycopene than cells expressing dxs only. However, at higher arabinose concentrations lycopene production in cells expressing both dxs and dxr was lower than in cells expressing dxs only. A comparison of the three E. coli strains transformed with the arabinose-inducible dxs on a medium-copy plamid revealed that lycopene production was highest in XL1-Blue.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.294-299
• /
• 2000

Proteolytic processing of the dengue virus serotype 2 polyprotein precursor is catalyzed by a host signal peptidase and a virus encoded two-component protease consisting of the nonstructural proteins, NS2B and NS3. We expressed in Escherichia coli the NS2B, NS3(pro) and NS2B-NS3 proteins from the dengue virus type 2 strain 16681 as N-terminal fusions with a hexahistidine affinity tag under the control of the inducible trc promoter. All fusion proteins were purified to >90% purity by detergent extraction of inclusion bodies and a single step metal chelate chromatography. Proteins were refolded on-column and recovered with yields of 0.5, 6.0 and 1.0 mg/l of E. coli culture that was grown to $OD_{600}=1.0$ for NS2B, NS3(pro) and NS2B-NS3, respectively. Purified proteins gave strong signals in Western blots using $Ni^{2+}-nitrilotriacetic$ acid as a probe for the presence of the polyHis tag. During the purification process, $(His)_{6}NS2B-NS3$ was apparently not autoproteolytically cleaved at the NS2B/NS3 site.