The metabolic engineering of carbon monoxide (CO) oxidizers has the potential to create efficient biocatalysts to produce hydrogen and other valuable chemicals. We herein applied markerless gene deletion to CO dehydrogenase/energy-converting hydrogenase (CODH/ECH) in the thermophilic facultative anaerobe, Parageobacillus thermoglucosidasius. We initially compared the transformation efficiency of two strains, NBRC 107763T and TG4. We then disrupted CODH, ECH, and both enzymes in NBRC 107763T. The characterization of growth in all three disruptants under 100% CO demonstrated that both enzymes were essential for CO-dependent growth with hydrogen production in P. thermoglucosidasius. The present results will become a platform for the further metabolic engineering of this organism.
Keywords: Parageobacillus; carbon monoxide; hydrogen; markerless gene deletion; water-gas shift reaction.