Methanol‐based cadaverine production by genetically engineered B acillus methanolicus strains

• Published in: Microbial biotechnology Vol. 8; no. 2; pp. 342 - 350
• Main Authors: Nærdal, Ingemar, Pfeifenschneider, Johannes, Brautaset, Trygve, Wendisch, Volker F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-03-2015
• ISSN: 1751-7915; 1751-7915
• DOI: 10.1111/1751-7915.12257

Methanol is regarded as an attractive substrate for biotechnological production of value‐added bulk products, such as amino acids and polyamines. In the present study, the methylotrophic and thermophilic bacterium
B
acillus methanolicus
was engineered into a microbial cell factory for the production of the platform chemical 1,5‐diaminopentane (cadaverine) from methanol. This was achieved by the heterologous expression of the
E
scherichia coli
genes
cad
A
and
ldc
C
encoding two different lysine decarboxylase enzymes, and by increasing the overall
L
‐lysine production levels in this host. Both
CadA
and
LdcC
were functional in
B
. methanolicus
cultivated at 50°C and expression of
cad
A
resulted in cadaverine production levels up to 500 mg l
−1
during shake flask conditions. A volume‐corrected concentration of 11.3 g l
−1
of cadaverine was obtained by high‐cell density fed‐batch methanol fermentation. Our results demonstrated that efficient conversion of
L
‐lysine into cadaverine presumably has severe effects on feedback regulation of the
L
‐lysine biosynthetic pathway in
B
. methanolicus
. By also investigating the cadaverine tolerance level,
B
. methanolicus
proved to be an exciting alternative host and comparable to the well‐known bacterial hosts
E
. coli
and
C
orynebacterium glutamicum
. This study represents the first demonstration of microbial production of cadaverine from methanol.