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Background: In Gram-positive Corynebacterium glutamicum and other members of the suborder Corynebacterianeae, which includes mycobacteria, cell elongation and peptidoglycan biosynthesis is mainly due to polar growth. C. glutamicum lacks an uptake system for the peptidoglycan constituent N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc), but is able to catabolize GlcNAc-6-phosphate. Due to its importance in white biotechnology and in order to ensure more sustainable processes based on non-food renewables and to reduce feedstock costs, C. glutamicum strains have previously been engineered to produce amino acids from GlcNAc. GlcNAc also is a constituent of chitin, but it is unknown if C. glutamicum possesses chitinolytic enzymes., Results: Chitin was shown here not to be growth substrate for C. glutamicum. However, its genome encodes a putative N-acetylglucosaminidase. The nagA 2 gene product was active as β-N-acetylglucosaminidase with 0.27 mM 4-nitrophenyl N,N'-diacetyl-β-D-chitobioside as substrate supporting half-maximal activity. NagA2 was secreted into the culture medium when overproduced with TAT and Sec dependent signal peptides, while it remained cytoplasmic when overproduced without signal peptide. Heterologous expression of exochitinase gene chiB from Serratia marcescens resulted in chitinolytic activity and ChiB secretion was enhanced when a signal peptide from C. glutamicum was used. Colloidal chitin did not support growth of a strain secreting exochitinase ChiB and β-N-acetylglucosaminidase NagA2., Conclusions: C. glutamicum possesses β-N-acetylglucosaminidase. In the wild type, β-N-acetylglucosaminidase activity was too low to be detected. However, overproduction of the enzyme fused to TAT or Sec signal peptides led to secretion of active β-N-acetylglucosaminidase. The finding that concomitant secretion of endogenous NagA2 and exochitinase ChiB from S. marcescens did not entail growth with colloidal chitin as sole or combined carbon source, may indicate the requirement for higher or additional enzyme activities such as processive chitinase or endochitinase activities.

Unlabelled: Corynebacterium glutamicum metabolizes sialic acid (Neu5Ac) to fructose-6-phosphate (fructose-6P) via the consecutive activity of the sialic acid importer SiaEFGI, N-acetylneuraminic acid lyase (NanA), N-acetylmannosamine kinase (NanK), N-acetylmannosamine-6P epimerase (NanE), N-acetylglucosamine-6P deacetylase (NagA), and glucosamine-6P deaminase (NagB). Within the cluster of the three operons nagAB, nanAKE, and siaEFGI for Neu5Ac utilization a fourth operon is present, which comprises cg2936, encoding a GntR-type transcriptional regulator, here named NanR. Microarray studies and reporter gene assays showed that nagAB, nanAKE, siaEFGI, and nanR are repressed in wild-type (WT) C. glutamicum but highly induced in a ΔnanR C. glutamicum mutant. Purified NanR was found to specifically bind to the nucleotide motifs A[AC]G[CT][AC]TGATGTC[AT][TG]ATGT[AC]TA located within the nagA-nanA and nanR-sialA intergenic regions. Binding of NanR to promoter regions was abolished in the presence of the Neu5Ac metabolism intermediates GlcNAc-6P and N-acetylmannosamine-6-phosphate (ManNAc-6P). We observed consecutive utilization of glucose and Neu5Ac as well as fructose and Neu5Ac by WT C. glutamicum, whereas the deletion mutant C. glutamicum ΔnanR simultaneously consumed these sugars. Increased reporter gene activities for nagAB, nanAKE, and nanR were observed in cultivations of WT C. glutamicum with Neu5Ac as the sole substrate compared to cultivations when fructose was present. Taken together, our findings show that Neu5Ac metabolism in C. glutamicum is subject to catabolite repression, which involves control by the repressor NanR., Importance: Neu5Ac utilization is currently regarded as a common trait of both pathogenic and commensal bacteria. Interestingly, the nonpathogenic soil bacterium C. glutamicum efficiently utilizes Neu5Ac as a substrate for growth. Expression of genes for Neu5Ac utilization in C. glutamicum is here shown to depend on the transcriptional regulator NanR, which is the first GntR-type regulator of Neu5Ac metabolism not to use Neu5Ac as effector but relies instead on the inducers GlcNAc-6P and ManNAc-6P. The identification of conserved NanR-binding sites in intergenic regions within the operons for Neu5Ac utilization in pathogenic Corynebacterium species indicates that the mechanism for the control of Neu5Ac catabolism in C. glutamicum by NanR as described in this work is probably conserved within this genus., (Copyright © 2016, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.)

Sustainable supply of feedstock has become a key issue in process development in microbial biotechnology. The workhorse of industrial amino acid production Corynebacterium glutamicum has been engineered towards utilization of alternative carbon sources. Utilization of the chitin-derived aminosugar N-acetyl-glucosamine (GlcNAc) for both cultivation and production with C. glutamicum has hitherto not been investigated. Albeit this organism harbors the enzymes N-acetylglucosamine-6-phosphatedeacetylase and glucosamine-6P deaminase of GlcNAc metabolism (encoded by nagA and nagB, respectively) growth of C. glutamicum with GlcNAc as substrate was not observed. This was attributed to the lack of a functional system for GlcNAc uptake. Of the 17 type strains of the genus Corynebacterium tested here for their ability to grow with GlcNAc, only Corynebacterium glycinophilum DSM45794 was able to utilize this substrate. Complementation studies with a GlcNAc-uptake deficient Escherichia coli strain revealed that C. glycinophilum possesses a nagE-encoded EII permease for GlcNAc uptake. Heterologous expression of the C. glycinophilum nagE in C. glutamicum indeed enabled uptake of GlcNAc. For efficient GlcNac utilization in C. glutamicum, improved expression of nagE with concurrent overexpression of the endogenous nagA and nagB genes was found to be necessary. Based on this strategy, C. glutamicum strains for the efficient production of the amino acid L-lysine as well as the carotenoid lycopene from GlcNAc as sole substrate were constructed.

Corynebacterium glutamicum grows with a variety of carbohydrates and carbohydrate derivatives as sole carbon sources; however, growth with glucosamine has not yet been reported. We isolated a spontaneous mutant (M4) which is able to grow as fast with glucosamine as with glucose as sole carbon source. Glucosamine also served as a combined source of carbon, energy and nitrogen for the mutant strain. Characterisation of the M4 mutant revealed a significantly increased expression of the nagB gene encoding the glucosamine-6P deaminase NagB involved in degradation of glucosamine, as a consequence of a single mutation in the promoter region of the nagAB-scrB operon. Ectopic nagB overexpression verified that the activity of the NagB enzyme is in fact the growth limiting factor under these conditions. In addition, glucosamine uptake was studied, which proved to be unchanged in the wild-type and M4 mutant strains. Using specific deletion strains, we identified the PTS(Glc) transport system to be responsible for glucosamine uptake in C. glutamicum. The affinity of this uptake system for glucosamine was about 40-fold lower than that for its major substrate glucose. Because of this difference in affinity, glucosamine is efficiently taken up only if external glucose is absent or present at low concentrations. C. glutamicum was also examined for its suitability to use glucosamine as substrate for biotechnological purposes. Upon overexpression of the nagB gene in suitable C. glutamicum producer strains, efficient production of both the amino acid L-lysine and the diamine putrescine from glucosamine was demonstrated.