Regulatory changes in the fucose system associated with the evolution of a catabolic pathway for propanediol in Escherichia coli

Abstract

Wild-type strains of E. coli are unable to use L-1,2-propanediol as a carbon and energy source. Strain 3, a mutant selected for the ability to grow on this compound at progressively more rapid rates, synthesizes constitutively a nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide-linked propanediol oxidoreductase. This enzyme is normally synthesized during anaerobic growth on L-fucose when it functions as a lactaldehyde reductase. Propanediol, the end product of this fermentation process, escapes irretrievably into the medium. The propanediol-utilizing mutant can no longer grow on fucose in either the presence or absence of molecular oxygen. In the present study nine independent lines of propanediol-positive mutants were characterized. One mutant, strain 418, attained a propanediol growth rate close to that of strain 3 without loss of the ability to grow on fucose. In all cases examined, however, prolonged selection on propanediol did result in the emergence of fucose-negative mutants. All of these mutants had enzyme patterns similar to that of strain 3; namely, fucose permease, fucose isomerase, and fuculose kinase were noninducible, whereas fuculose 1-phosphate aldolase was constitutive. In strain 418 and in the fucose-positive predecessors of the other mutants, the first four enzymes in the pathway remained inducible, as in the wild type strain. Improvements in the growth rate on propanediol appeared to reflect principally the increased activity level of the oxidoreductase during the early stages of evolution. According to transductional analysis, the mutations affecting the ability to grow on propanediol and those that affect the expression of the first enzymes in the fucose pathway were very closely linked. The loss of the ability to grow on fucose is thought to be mechanistic consequence incidental to the remodeling of the regulatory system in favor of the utilization of the novel carbon source.