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Deletion of poxB, pta, and ackA improves 1,3-propanediol production by Klebsiella pneumoniae

  • Applied microbial and cell physiology
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Abstract

To date, few studies have focused on reducing the toxic by-product acetate during 1,3-propanediol production by Klebsiella pneumoniae. In this study, the effects of deleting the poxB, pta, and ackA genes, which are involved in the two main acetate synthesis pathways, on cell growth and 1,3-propanediol production were investigated. Although acetate synthesis via pyruvate oxidase (PoxB, encoded by poxB) generally seems unnecessary and wasteful, PoxB was shown to play an important role in K. pneumoniae. Deletion of poxB severely inhibited cell growth, and the poxB mutant exhibited an anomalously high accumulation of acetate in aerobic cultures and failed to produce an endogenous supply of carbon dioxide (CO2) in anaerobic cultures. It is interesting that both the aerobic and anaerobic growth defects of the poxB mutant were corrected by further deleting pta and ackA, which blocked the other main acetate synthesis pathway. The poxB-pta-ackA mutant excreted less acetate and showed an excellent ability to produce 1,3-propandiol. The final 1,3-propanediol yield and concentration in a 2-L fed-batch fermentation reached 0.66 (mol/mol) and 76.8 g/L, respectively, which were 16 and 15 % greater, respectively, than those of the parent strain.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 31271862.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai, 200237, People’s Republic of China

    Jie Lin, Yongqiang Zhang, Danfeng Xu, Gang Xiang, Zongxiao Jia, Shuilin Fu & Heng Gong

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  1. Jie Lin
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  2. Yongqiang Zhang
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Correspondence to Heng Gong.

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Lin, J., Zhang, Y., Xu, D. et al. Deletion of poxB, pta, and ackA improves 1,3-propanediol production by Klebsiella pneumoniae . Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 100, 2775–2784 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-7237-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-7237-2

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