Abstract
Komagataeibacter xylinus is an aerobic strain that produces bacterial cellulose (BC). Oxygen levels play a critical role in regulating BC synthesis in K. xylinus, and an increase in oxygen tension generally means a decrease in BC production. Fumarate nitrate reduction protein (FNR) and aerobic respiration control protein A (ArcA) are hypoxia-inducible factors, which can signal whether oxygen is present in the environment. In this study, FNR and ArcA were used to enhance the efficiency of oxygen signaling in K. xylinus, and globally regulate the transcription of the genome to cope with hypoxic conditions, with the goal of improving growth and BC production. FNR and ArcA were individually overexpressed in K. xylinus, and the engineered strains were cultivated under different oxygen tensions to explore how their overexpression affects cellular metabolism and regulation. Although FNR overexpression did not improve BC production, ArcA overexpression increased BC production by 24.0% and 37.5% as compared to the control under oxygen tensions of 15% and 40%, respectively. Transcriptome analysis showed that FNR and ArcA overexpression changed the way K. xylinus coped with oxygen tension changes, and that both FNR and ArcA overexpression enhanced the BC synthesis pathway. The results of this study provide a new perspective on the effect of oxygen signaling on growth and BC production in K. xylinus and suggest a promising strategy for enhancing BC production through metabolic engineering.
Key points
• K. xylinus BC production increased after overexpression of ArcA
• The young’s modulus is enhanced by the ArcA overexpression
• ArcA and FNR overexpression changed how cells coped with changes in oxygen tension
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Data availability
The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
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This study was funded by The National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant number 2021YFC2100800).
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ZC and HLL conceived and designed research. LXJ and WYT conducted experiments. HLL and LXJ analyzed data. HLL wrote the manuscript. XB contributed new reagents or analytical tools. All authors read and approved the manuscript.
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Huang, LH., Li, XJ., Wang, YT. et al. Enhancing bacterial cellulose production with hypoxia-inducible factors. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 106, 7099–7112 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-022-12192-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-022-12192-7