The fast-growing capability of Escherichia coli strains used to produce industrially relevant metabolites relies on their capability to transport efficiently glucose or potential industrial feedstocks such as sucrose or xylose as carbon sources. E. coli imports extracellular glucose into the periplasmic space across the outer membrane porins: OmpC, OmpF, and LamB. As the internal membrane is an impermeable barrier for sugars, the cell employs several primary and secondary active transport systems, and the phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP)-sugar phosphotransferase (PTS) system for glucose transport. PTS:glucose is the preferred system by E. coli to transport and phosphorylate the periplasmic glucose; nevertheless, PTS imposes a strict metabolic control mechanism on the preferential consumption of glucose over other carbon sources in sugar mixtures such as glucose and xylose resulting from the hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass, by the carbon catabolite repression. In this contribution, we summarize the major sugar transport systems for glucose and disaccharide transport, the exhibited substrate plasticity, and their impact on the growth of E. coli, highlighting the relevance of PTS in the control of the expression of genes for the transport and catabolism of other sugars as xylose. We discuss the strategies developed by evolved mutants of E. coli during adaptive laboratory evolution experiments to overcome the nutritional stress condition imposed by inactivation of PTS as a strategy for the selection of fast-growing derivatives in glucose, xylose, or mixtures of glucose:xylose. This approach results in the recruitment of other primary and secondary active transporters, demonstrating relevant sugar plasticity in derivative-evolved mutants. Elucidation of the molecular and biochemical basis of sugar-transport substrate plasticity represents a consistent approach for sugar-transport system engineering for the design of efficient E. coli derivative strains with improved substrate assimilation for biotechnological purposes.
Keywords: Active transport; Adaptive laboratory evolution; Escherichia coli; OMP; PTS; Sugar transport plasticity.