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Construction of a “nutrition supply–detoxification” coculture consortium for medium-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanoate production with a glucose–xylose mixture

  • Genetics and Molecular Biology of Industrial Organisms - Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

In this study, we constructed a coculture consortium comprising engineered Pseudomonas putida KT2440 and Escherichia coli MG1655. Provision of “related” carbon sources and synthesis of medium-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanoates (mcl-PHAs) were separately assigned to these strains via a modular construction strategy. To avoid growth competition, a preference for the use of a carbon source was constructed. Further, the main intermediate metabolite acetate played an important role in constructing the expected “nutrition supply–detoxification” relationship between these strains. The coculture consortium showed a remarkable increase in the mcl-PHA titer (0.541 g/L) with a glucose–xylose mixture (1:1). Subsequently, the titer of mcl-PHA produced by the coculture consortium when tested with actual lignocellulosic hydrolysate (0.434 g/L) was similar to that achieved with laboratory sugars’ mixture (0.469 g/L). These results indicate a competitive potential of the engineered E. coli–P. putida coculture consortium for mcl-PHA production with lignocellulosic hydrolysate.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the kind donation of Escherichia coli MG1655 from Dr. Tao Chen and the plasmid pBBR1MCS-2 from Dr. Yingjin Yuan at Tianjin University. The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support provided by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Project no. 2018YFA0902100), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21576197), and Tianjin Research Program of Application Foundation and Advanced Technology (No. 18JCYBJC23500).

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  1. Yaru Liu and Songyuan Yang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, People’s Republic of China

    Yaru Liu, Songyuan Yang & Xiaoqiang Jia

  2. Frontier Science Center for Synthetic Biology and Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (MOE), School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300350, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaoqiang Jia

  3. SynBio Research Platform, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering, Tianjin, 300072, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaoqiang Jia

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  1. Yaru Liu
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Liu, Y., Yang, S. & Jia, X. Construction of a “nutrition supply–detoxification” coculture consortium for medium-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanoate production with a glucose–xylose mixture. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 47, 343–354 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-020-02267-7

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