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Title: Engineering Escherichia coli coculture systems for the production of biochemical products

Journal Article · · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
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  1. Chemical Engineering Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139

Engineering microbial consortia to express complex biosynthetic pathways efficiently for the production of valuable compounds is a promising approach for metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. Here, we report the design, optimization, and scale-up of an Escherichia coli-E. coli coculture that successfully overcomes fundamental microbial production limitations, such as high-level intermediate secretion and low-efficiency sugar mixture utilization. For the production of the important chemical cis,cis-muconic acid, we show that the coculture approach achieves a production yield of 0.35 g/g from a glucose/xylose mixture, which is significantly higher than reported in previous reports. Furthermore, by efficiently producing another compound, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, we also demonstrate that the approach is generally applicable for biosynthesis of other important industrial products.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0008744
OSTI ID:
1235138
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1348825
Journal Information:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Journal Name: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Vol. 112 Journal Issue: 27; ISSN 0027-8424
Publisher:
Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 190 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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