Engineering the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway in Rhodothermus marinus for lycopene production

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)
Rhodothermus marinus has the potential to be well suited for biorefineries, as an aerobic thermophile that produces thermostable enzymes and is able to utilize polysaccharides from different 2nd and 3rd generation biomass. The bacterium produces valuable chemicals such as carotenoids. However, the native carotenoids are not established for industrial production and R. marinus needs to be genetically modified to produce higher value carotenoids. Here we genetically modified the carotenoid biosynthetic gene cluster resulting in three different mutants, most importantly the lycopene producing mutant TK-3 (ΔtrpBΔpurAΔcruFcrtB::trpBcrtBT.thermophilus). The genetic modifications and subsequent structural analysis of carotenoids helped clarify the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway in R. marinus. The nucleotide sequences encoding the enzymes phytoene synthase (CrtB) and the previously unidentified 1′,2′-hydratase (CruF) were found fused together and encoded by a single gene in R. marinus. Deleting only the cruF part of the gene did not result in an active CrtB enzyme. However, by deleting the entire gene and inserting the crtB gene from Thermus thermophilus, a mutant strain was obtained, producing lycopene as the sole carotenoid. The lycopene produced by TK-3 was quantified as 0.49 ​g/kg CDW (cell dry weight).
This work was supported by the Marine Biotechnology ERA-NET, ThermoFactories, project grant number 5178–00003B; the Technology Development fund in Iceland, grant number 159004-0612; the Icelandic Research fund, ThermoExplore, project grant number 207088-051 and the Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF18OC0034792). ENK, CT, EYCR and DM-D would like to acknowledge the Swedish Research Council Formas (2018-01863).