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XylR Overexpression in Escherichia coli Alleviated Transcriptional Repression by Arabinose and Enhanced Xylitol Bioproduction from Xylose Mother Liquor

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Abstract

Xylitol is a polyol widely used in food, pharmaceuticals, and light industries. It is currently produced through the chemical catalytic hydrogenation of xylose and generates xylose mother liquor as a substantial byproduct in the procedure of xylose extraction. If xylose mother liquor could also be efficiently bioconverted to xylitol, the greenness and atom economy of xylitol production would be largely improved. However, xylose mother liquor contains a mixture of glucose, xylose, and arabinose, raising the issue of carbon catabolic repression in its utilization by microbial conversion. Targeting this challenge, the transcriptional activator XylR was overexpressed in a previously constructed xylitol-producing E. coli strain CPH. The resulting strain CPHR produced 16.61 g/L of xylitol in shake-flask cultures from the mixture of corn cob hydrolysate and xylose mother liquor (1:1, v/v) with a xylose conversion rate of 90.1%, which were 2.23 and 2.15 times higher than the starting strain, respectively. Furthermore, XylR overexpression upregulated the expression levels of xylE, xylF, xylG, and xylH genes by 2.08–2.72 times in arabinose-containing medium, suggesting the alleviation of transcriptional repression of xylose transport genes by arabinose. This work lays the foundation for xylitol bioproduction from xylose mother liquor.

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Data Availability

Original data generated in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

HPLC:

High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

PCR:

Polymerase Chain Reaction

GFP:

Green Fluorescent Protein

CCR:

Carbon Catabolite Repression

CRP:

Cyclic AMP Receptor Protein

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 22278362) and the Public Welfare Project of Zhejiang Provincial Science and Technology Department (no. LGG21B06005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, People’s Republic of China

    Dongxu Yuan, Bingbing Liu, Lin Jiang, Gang Xu, Jianping Lin, Lirong Yang, Jiazhang Lian, Yiqi Jiang, Lidan Ye & Mianbin Wu

  2. Ningbo Innovation Center, Zhejiang University, Ningbo, 315100, People’s Republic of China

    Mianbin Wu

  3. Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Antifungal Drugs, Taizhou, 318000, People’s Republic of China

    Mianbin Wu

  4. School of Biological and Chemical Engineering, NingboTech University, Ningbo, 315100, People’s Republic of China

    Yiqi Jiang

  5. College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, People’s Republic of China

    Yuhuan Chen

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  1. Dongxu Yuan
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Contributions

Investigation and validation: Bingbing Liu, Lin Jiang, and Gang Xu. Administrative support: Mianbin Wu, Lidan Ye, and Lirong Yang. Methodology and data analysis: Dongxu Yuan, Jianping Lin, and Yuhuan Chen. Manuscript writing: Dongxu Yuan and Bingbing Liu. Review and editing: Mianbin Wu, Lidan Ye, Yiqi Jiang, and Jizhang Lian. Final approval of manuscript: all authors.

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Correspondence to Yiqi Jiang, Lidan Ye or Mianbin Wu.

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Yuan, D., Liu, B., Jiang, L. et al. XylR Overexpression in Escherichia coli Alleviated Transcriptional Repression by Arabinose and Enhanced Xylitol Bioproduction from Xylose Mother Liquor. Appl Biochem Biotechnol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-024-04890-x

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