Summary Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a frequent cause of bacterial sepsis and meningitis in neonates. During the course of infection, GBS colonizes and invades

Corynebacterium glutamicum was engineered for the production of L-valine from glucose by deletion of the aceE gene encoding the E1p enzyme of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex and additional overexpression of the ilvBNCE genes encoding the L-valine biosynthetic enzymes acetohydroxyacid synthase, isomeroreductase, and transaminase B. In the absence of cellular growth, C. glutamicum ⌬aceE showed a relatively high intracellular concentration of pyruvate (25.9 mM) and produced significant amounts of pyruvate, L-alanine, and L-valine from glucose as the sole carbon source. Lactate or acetate was not formed. Plasmid-bound overexpression of ilvBNCE in C. glutamicum ⌬aceE resulted in an approximately 10-fold-lower intracellular pyruvate concentration (2.3 mM) and a shift of the extracellular product pattern from pyruvate and L-alanine towards L-valine. In fed-batch fermentations at high cell densities and an excess of glucose, C. glutamicum ⌬aceE(pJC4ilvBNCE) produced up to 210 mM L-valine with a volumetric productivity of 10.0 mM h ؊1 (1.17 g l ؊1 h ؊1 ) and a maximum yield of about 0.6 mol per mol (0.4 g per g) of glucose.

We recently engineered the wild type of Corynebacterium glutamicum for the growth-decoupled production of L: -valine from glucose by inactivation of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex and additional overexpression of the ilvBNCE genes, encoding the L-valine biosynthetic enzymes acetohydroxyacid synthase, isomeroreductase, and transaminase B. Based on the first generation of pyruvate-dehydrogenase-complex-deficient C. glutamicum strains, a second generation of high-yield L-valine producers was constructed by successive deletion of the genes encoding pyruvate:quinone oxidoreductase, phosphoglucose isomerase, and pyruvate carboxylase and overexpression of ilvBNCE. In fed-batch fermentations at high cell densities, the newly constructed strains produced up to 410 mM (48 g/l) L-valine, showed a maximum yield of 0.75 to 0.86 mol/mol (0.49 to 0.56 g/g) of glucose in the production phase and, in contrast to the first generation strains, excreted neither pyruvate nor any other by-product tested.

The E1p enzyme is an essential part of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDHC) and catalyzes the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate with concomitant acetylation of the E2p enzyme within the complex. We analyzed the Corynebacterium glutamicum aceE gene, encoding the E1p enzyme, and constructed and characterized an E1p-deficient mutant. Sequence analysis of the C. glutamicum aceE gene and adjacent regions revealed that aceE is not flanked by genes encoding other enzymes of the PDHC. Transcriptional analysis revealed that aceE from C. glutamicum is monocistronic and that its transcription is initiated 121 nucleotides upstream of the translational start site. Inactivation of the chromosomal aceE gene led to the inability to grow on glucose and to the absence of PDHC and E1p activities, indicating that only a single E1p enzyme is present in C. glutamicum and that the PDHC is essential for the growth of this organism on carbohydrate substrates. Surprisingly, the E1p enzyme of C. glutamicum showed up to 51% identity to homodimeric E1p proteins from gram-negative bacteria but no similarity to E1 ␣-or ␤-subunits of heterotetrameric E1p enzymes which are generally assumed to be typical for gram-positives. To investigate the distribution of E1p enzymes in bacteria, we compiled and analyzed the phylogeny of 46 homodimeric E1p proteins and of 58 ␣-subunits of heterotetrameric E1p proteins deposited in public databases. The results revealed that the distribution of homodimeric and heterotetrameric E1p subunits in bacteria is not in accordance with the rRNA-based phylogeny of bacteria and is more heterogeneous than previously assumed.The pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDHC) represents a member of a multienzyme complex family that also comprises the 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase complex (OGDHC) and the branched-chain 2-oxoacid dehydrogenase complex (BCOADHC). These enzymes catalyze the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate, 2-oxoglutarate, and the 2-oxo acids of the branched-chain amino acids L-leucine, L-valine, and L-isoleucine, respectively. In general, the multienzyme complexes are composed of multiple copies of three different enzymes, a thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) containing 2-oxoacid decarboxylase (E1), a lipoic acid-containing dihydrolipoamide acyltransferase (E2), and the flavin-containing lipoamide dehydrogenase (LPD). The E1 enzyme catalyzes the irreversible, TPP-dependent oxidative decarboxylation of the 2-oxoacid, followed by the acylation of the lipoyl prosthetic group covalently attached to the E2 chain. The E2 component catalyzes the transfer of the acyl group from the lipoyl group to coenzyme A (CoA). The resulting dihydrolipoyl group is reoxidized by LPD, generating NADH and H ϩ from NAD ϩ (for a recent review, see reference 11). The E1 and E2 enzymes are specific for each of the three multienzyme complexes and therefore specified as E1p and E2p in the PDHC, E1o and E2o in the OGDHC, and E1b, and E2b in the BCOADHC. In contrast, the LPD component is common in the three multienzyme complexes in most organ...

Intracellular precursor supply is a critical factor for amino acid productivity of Corynebacterium glutamicum. To test for the effect of improved pyruvate availability on L-lysine production, we deleted the aceE gene encoding the E1p enzyme of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDHC) in the L-lysine-producer C. glutamicum DM1729 and characterised the resulting strain DM1729-BB1 for growth and L-lysine production. Compared to the host strain, C. glutamicum DM1729-BB1 showed no PDHC activity, was acetate auxotrophic and, after complete consumption of the available carbon sources glucose and acetate, showed a more than 50% lower substrate-specific biomass yield (0.14 vs 0.33 mol C/mol C), an about fourfold higher biomass-specific L-lysine yield (5.27 vs 1.23 mmol/g cell dry weight) and a more than 40% higher substrate-specific L-lysine yield (0.13 vs 0.09 mol C/mol C). Overexpression of the pyruvate carboxylase or diaminopimelate dehydrogenase genes in C. glutamicum DM1729-BB1 resulted in a further increase in the biomass-specific L-lysine yield by 6 and 56%, respectively. In addition to L-lysine, significant amounts of pyruvate, L-alanine and L-valine were produced by C. glutamicum DM1729-BB1 and its derivatives, suggesting a surplus of precursor availability and a further potential to improve L-lysine production by engineering the L-lysine biosynthetic pathway.

Pyruvate:quinone oxidoreductase catalyzes the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate to acetate and CO 2 with a quinone as the physiological electron acceptor. So far, this enzyme activity has been found only in Escherichia coli. Using 2,6-dichloroindophenol as an artificial electron acceptor, we detected pyruvate:quinone oxidoreductase activity in cell extracts of the amino acid producer Corynebacterium glutamicum. The activity was highest (0.055 ؎ 0.005 U/mg of protein) in cells grown on complex medium and about threefold lower when the cells were grown on medium containing glucose, pyruvate, or acetate as the carbon source. From wild-type C. glutamicum, the pyruvate:quinone oxidoreductase was purified about 180-fold to homogeneity in four steps and subjected to biochemical analysis. The enzyme is a flavoprotein, has a molecular mass of about 232 kDa, and consists of four identical subunits of about 62 kDa. It was activated by Triton X-100, phosphatidylglycerol, and dipalmitoyl-phosphatidylglycerol, and the substrates were pyruvate (k cat ‫؍‬ 37. In addition to several dyes (2,6-dichloroindophenol, p-iodonitrotetrazolium violet, and nitroblue tetrazolium), menadione (K m ‫؍‬ 106 M) was efficiently reduced by the purified pyruvate:quinone oxidoreductase, indicating that a naphthoquinone may be the physiological electron acceptor of this enzyme in C. glutamicum.Corynebacterium glutamicum is an aerobic, gram-positive organism that grows on a variety of sugars and organic acids and is widely used in the industrial production of amino acids, particularly L-glutamate and L-lysine (40). Due to its importance for the carbon flux distribution within the metabolism and for the precursor supply for amino acid synthesis, the phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP)-pyruvate node of this organism (see Fig. 1) has been intensively studied and much attention has been focused on some of the enzymes involved, e.g., pyruvate kinase, PEP carboxylase, pyruvate carboxylase, and PEP carboxykinase (24,33,34,51,52,55). The oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate and thus the fueling of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle with acetyl coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) in C. glutamicum have been generally attributed to the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (16,40,61).The genome of C. glutamicum has recently been determined and annotated (GenBank accession numbers NC_003450 and BX927147) (35,63), and an open reading frame (cg2891) with significant identity to the Escherichia coli pyruvate oxidase gene (poxB) has been detected (8, 35). This finding indicated the presence of an additional pyruvate-decarboxylating enzyme at the C. glutamicum PEP-pyruvate node (Fig. 1). The E. coli pyruvate oxidase (EC 1.2.2.2) catalyzes the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate to acetate and CO 2 (68) and is a nonessential, peripheral membrane protein consisting of four identical subunits each containing tightly bound flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) and loosely bound thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) and Mg 2ϩ (6,26,43,44,68). As the reaction of the enzyme is oxygen independent and uses ubi...

Corynebacterium glutamicum recently has been shown to possess pyruvate:quinone oxidoreductase (PQO), catalyzing the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate to acetate and CO 2 with a quinone as the electron acceptor. Here, we analyze the expression of the C. glutamicum pqo gene, investigate the relevance of the PQO enzyme for growth and amino acid production, and perform phylogenetic studies. Expression analyses revealed that transcription of pqo is initiated 45 bp upstream of the translational start site and that it is organized in an operon together with genes encoding a putative metal-activated pyridoxal enzyme and a putative activator protein. Inactivation of the chromosomal pqo gene led to the absence of PQO activity; however, growth and amino acid production were not affected under either condition tested. Introduction of plasmid-bound pqo into a pyruvate dehydrogenase complex-negative C. glutamicum strain partially relieved the growth phenotype of this mutant, indicating that high PQO activity can compensate for the function of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex. To investigate the distribution of PQO enzymes in prokaryotes and to clarify the relationship between PQO, pyruvate oxidase (POX), and acetohydroxy acid synthase enzymes, we compiled and analyzed the phylogeny of respective proteins deposited in public databases. The analyses revealed a wide distribution of PQOs among prokaryotes, corroborated the hypothesis of a common ancestry of the three enzymes, and led us to propose that the POX enzymes of Lactobacillales were derived from a PQO.Pyruvate:quinone oxidoreductase (PQO) (EC 1.2.2.2) catalyzes the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate to acetate and CO 2 with a quinone as the physiological electron acceptor. The Escherichia coli PQO enzyme, also designated pyruvate oxidase (POX), is a nonessential, peripheral membrane protein consisting of four identical subunits, each containing tightly bound flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) and loosely bound thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) and Mg 2ϩ (4,22,37,38,75). This enzyme has been shown to be strongly activated by low concentrations of phospholipids and detergents (5,8,15,16,28), and the activation has been shown to be accompanied by conformational changes and alteration of various properties of the enzyme (11,12,74). Aside from extensive biochemical characterization of the E. coli PQO, the respective gene ( poxB) and its expression have been studied in detail (7, 9, 25). Expression of the poxB gene was dependent on sigma factor RpoS and thus induced in the stationary growth phase (7). Accordingly, the authors speculated that the enzyme might be responsible for oxidative pyruvate decarboxylation during the transition between the exponential aerobic growth phase and the stationary growth phase when cultures become anaerobic. Further studies with poxB inactivation mutants and with poxBoverexpressing strains of E. coli indicated that PQO activity contributes to the aerobic growth efficiency and that a high PQO activity, together with acetyl-coenzyme A (CoA) syn...

In Corynebacterium glutamicum, the transcriptional regulator RamB negatively controls the expression of genes involved in acetate metabolism. Here we show that during growth in media containing glucose and in complex medium without glucose RamB activates expression of the aceE gene, encoding the E1p subunit of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex. Thus, RamB functions both as repressor and as activator in C. glutamicum.