Currently, the mechanism of temperature-sensitive production of glutamate in Corynebacterium glutamicum has not been clarified. We first found the murA and murB genes were potentially related to temperature-sensitive secretion of glutamate, which were not existed in a temperature-sensitive mutant. When replenishing murA or/and murB in the mutant, the temperature sensitivity was weakened. While, their knockout in a wild-type strain resulted in temperature-sensitive secretion of glutamate. Peptidoglycan analysis showed that deletion of murA and murB decreased the peptidoglycan synthesis. Comparative metabolomics analysis suggested that the variation in cell wall structure resulted in decreased overall cellular metabolism but increased carbon flow to glutamate synthesis, which was a typical metabolism pattern in industrial temperature-sensitive producing strains. This study clarifies the mechanism between murA and murB deletion and the temperature-sensitive secretion of glutamate in C. glutamcium, and provides a reference for the metabolic engineering of cell wall to obtain increased bioproduction of chemicals.
Keywords: Corynebacterium glutamicum; cell wall; glutamate; metabolomics; temperature sensitivity.