Strategy for stable and high-level expression of recombinant trehalose synthase in Escherichia coli

J Agric Food Chem. 2012 Jun 13;60(23):6063-8. doi: 10.1021/jf301593e. Epub 2012 Jun 1.

Abstract

Trehalose is a nonreducing disaccharide and has a wide range of applications in food and biorelated industry. This sugar can be synthesized from maltose in one step by trehalose synthase. In this study, we attempted to overproduce trehalose synthase from Picrophilus torridus (PTTS), a thermoacidophilic archaea, in Escherichia coli . However, overproduction of PTTS was hampered when the T7 promoter-driven PTTS gene (PT7-PTTS) on a multicopy plasmid was employed in E. coli . The factors limiting PTTS production were identified in a systematic way, including the codon bias, plasmid instability, a redundant gene copy, a high basal level of PTTS, and metabolic burden resulting from the mutlicopy plasmid DNA and antibiotics. To overcome these difficulties, an E. coli strain was developed with insertion of PT7-PTTS into the chromosome and enhanced expression of genomic argU tRNA and ileX tRNA genes. Without the selective pressure, the constructed producer strain was able to produce a stable and high-level production of recombinant PTTS. Overall, we proposed a simple and effective method to address the issue that is most commonly raised in overproduction of heterologous proteins by E. coli .

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Codon
  • DNA, Bacterial / genetics
  • Escherichia coli / genetics*
  • Escherichia coli / metabolism
  • Gene Deletion
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial*
  • Glucosyltransferases / biosynthesis*
  • Glucosyltransferases / genetics
  • Maltose / metabolism
  • Plasmids
  • Promoter Regions, Genetic
  • Recombinant Proteins / biosynthesis*
  • Recombinant Proteins / genetics
  • Thermoplasmales / enzymology*
  • Thermoplasmales / genetics

Substances

  • Codon
  • DNA, Bacterial
  • Recombinant Proteins
  • Maltose
  • Glucosyltransferases
  • trehalose synthase