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Metabolic engineering and optimization of the fermentation medium for vitamin B12 production in Escherichia coli

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Abstract

Vitamin B12 is a crucial fine chemical that is widely used in the pharmaceutical, food and chemical industries, and its production solely dependents on microbial fermentation. We previously constructed an artificial vitamin B12 biosynthesis pathway in Escherichia coli, but the yield of the engineered strains was low. Here, we removed metabolic bottlenecks of the vitamin B12 biosynthesis pathway in engineered E. coli strains. After screening cobB genes from different sources, optimizing the expression of cobN and customizing the ribosome binding sites of cobS and cobT, the vitamin B12 yield increased to 152.29 μg/g dry cell weight (DCW). Optimization of the downstream module, which converts co(II)byrinic acid a,c-diamide into adenosylcobinamide phosphate, elevated the vitamin B12 yield to 249.04 μg/g DCW. A comparison of a variety of equivalent components indicated that glucose and corn steep liquor are optimal carbon and nitrogen sources, respectively. Finally, an orthogonal array design was applied to determine the optimal concentrations of glucose and nitrogen sources including corn steep liquor and yeast extract, through which a vitamin B12 yield of 530.29 μg/g DCW was obtained. The metabolic modifications and optimization of fermentation conditions achieved in this study offer a basis for further improving vitamin B12 production in E. coli and will hopefully accelerate its industrial application.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFA0900300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31900052, 31470787), Department of Science and Technology of Jilin Province (20190902014TC), and the Science and Technology Service Network (STS) Initiative of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (KFJ-STS-ZDTP-065).

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Author notes

  1. Dong Li and Huan Fang contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sci-Tech Center for Clean Conversion and High-Valued Utilization of Biomass, Northeast Electric Power University, Jilin, 132012, Jilin, China

    Dong Li, Lei Wang, Qun Wei & Dayu Yu

  2. Tian** Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tian**, 300308, China

    Dong Li, Huan Fang, Yuanming Gai, **g Zhao, **tao Jiang & Dawei Zhang

  3. Key Laboratory of Systems Microbial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tian**, 300308, China

    Huan Fang, Yuanming Gai, **g Zhao, **tao Jiang & Dawei Zhang

  4. National Engineering Laboratory for Industrial Enzymes, Tian**, 300308, China

    Dawei Zhang

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  1. Dong Li
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Li, D., Fang, H., Gai, Y. et al. Metabolic engineering and optimization of the fermentation medium for vitamin B12 production in Escherichia coli. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 43, 1735–1745 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-020-02355-z

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