Acetate is a potential low-cost carbon source that can be generated by biological and chemical processes. In this study, deletion of sdhAB encoding succinate dehydrogenase, iclR encoding the isocitrate lyase regulator, and maeB encoding the malic enzyme, and overexpression of acs encoding acetyl-CoA synthetase, gltA encoding citrate synthase, and acnB encoding aconitate hydratase in the wild-type Escherichia coli MG1655 strain yielded the recombinant E. coli strain WCY-7, which could synthesize succinate from acetate. After 48 h batch fermentation, this strain accumulated 11.23 mM succinate from 50 mM sodium acetate. This work indicates that microbial fermentation using acetate as the sole carbon source may be a suitable route to produce high yields of the valuable chemicals.
Keywords: Acetate; Escherichia coli; Metabolic engineering; Succinate.