title: Pull-in urea cycle for the production of fumaric acid in Escherichia coli.
abstract: Fumaric acid (FA) is an important raw material in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. In this work, Escherichia coli was metabolically engineered for the production of FA. The fumA, fumB, fumC, and frdABCD genes were deleted to cut off the downstream pathway of FA. In addition, the iclR and arcA genes were also deleted to activate the glyoxylate shunt and to reinforce the oxidative Krebs cycle. To increase the FA yield, this base strain was further engineered to be pulled in the urea cycle by overexpressing the native carAB, argI, and heterologous rocF genes. The metabolites and the proteins of the Krebs cycle and the urea cycle were analyzed to confirm that the induced urea cycle improved the FA accumulation. With the induced urea cycle, the resulting strain ABCDIA-RAC was able to produce 11.38 mmol/L of FA from 83.33 mmol/L of glucose in a flask culture during 24 h of incubation.
authors.affiliation: Beijing Bioprocess Key Laboratory, College of Life Science and Technology, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Ting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Zening
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.forename: Tianwei
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yajun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yan
mesh_terms: D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D005650:Fumarates / Q000378:metabolism*; D015964:Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; D060847:Metabolic Engineering; D014508:Urea / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D005650:Fumarates; C032005:fumaric acid; D014508:Urea