A new strategy for production of 5-aminolevulinic acid in recombinant Corynebacterium glutamicum with high yield

Abstract

5-Aminolevulinic acid (ALA), a nonprotein amino acid involved in tetrapyrrole synthesis, has been widely applied in agriculture, medicine, and food production. Many engineered metabolic pathways have been constructed; however, the production yields are still low. In this study, several 5-aminolevulinic acid synthases (ALASs) from different sources were evaluated and compared with respect to their ALA production capacities in an engineered Corynebacterium glutamicum CgS1 strain that can accumulate succinyl-coenzyme A (CoA). A codon-optimized ALAS from Rhodobacter capsulatus SB1003 displayed the best potential. Recombinant strain CgS1/pEC-SB produced 7.6 g/liter ALA using a mineral salt medium in a fed-batch fermentation mode. Employing two-stage fermentation, 12.46 g/liter ALA was produced within 17 h, with a productivity of 0.73 g/liter/h, in recombinant C. glutamicum. Through overexpression of the heterologous nonspecific ALA exporter RhtA from Escherichia coli, the titer was further increased to 14.7 g/liter. This indicated that strain CgS1/pEC-SB-rhtA holds attractive industrial application potential for the future.