title: Deletion of pyruvate decarboxylase by a new method for efficient markerless gene deletions in Gluconobacter oxydans.
abstract: Gluconobacter oxydans, a biotechnologically relevant species which incompletely oxidizes a large variety of carbohydrates, alcohols, and related compounds, contains a gene for pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC). This enzyme is found only in very few species of bacteria where it is normally involved in anaerobic ethanol formation via acetaldehyde. In order to clarify the role of PDC in the strictly oxidative metabolism of acetic acid bacteria, we developed a markerless in-frame deletion system for strain G. oxydans 621H which uses 5-fluorouracil together with a plasmid-encoded uracil phosphoribosyltransferase as counter selection method and used this technique to delete the PDC gene (GOX1081) of G. oxydans 621H. The PDC deletion mutant accumulated large amounts of pyruvate but almost no acetate during growth on D-mannitol, D-fructose or in the presence of L-lactate. This suggested that in G. oxydans acetate formation occurs by decarboxylation of pyruvate and subsequent oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetate. This observation and the efficiency of the markerless deletion system were confirmed by constructing deletion mutants of two acetaldehyde dehydrogenases (GOX1122 and GOX2018) and of the acetyl-CoA-synthetase (GOX0412). Acetate formation during growth of these mutants on mannitol did not differ significantly from the wild-type strain.
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für Mikrobiologie, Technische Universität München, Emil-Ramann-Str. 4, 85354 Freising, Germany.
authors.forename: Björn
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.forename: Anja
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Junker
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Brauer
authors.forename: Bernadette
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mühlthaler
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kostner
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mientus
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liebl
authors.forename: Armin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ehrenreich
mesh_terms: D019342:Acetic Acid / Q000378:metabolism; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D005632:Fructose / Q000378:metabolism; D017353:Gene Deletion; D005827:Genetics, Microbial / Q000379:methods*; D020600:Gluconobacter oxydans / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics*; D019344:Lactic Acid / Q000378:metabolism; D008353:Mannitol / Q000378:metabolism; D008967:Molecular Biology / Q000379:methods*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011767:Pyruvate Decarboxylase / Q000235:genetics*; D019289:Pyruvic Acid / Q000378:metabolism; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D005632:Fructose; D019344:Lactic Acid; D008353:Mannitol; D019289:Pyruvic Acid; D011767:Pyruvate Decarboxylase; D019342:Acetic Acid