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Coenzyme Q(10) (CoQ(10)) is a quinine consisting of ten units of the isoprenoid side-chain. Because it limits the oxidative attack of free radicals to DNA and lipids, CoQ(10) has been used as an antioxidant for foods, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Decaprenyl diphosphate synthase (DPS) is the key enzyme for synthesis of the decaprenyl tail in CoQ(10) with isopentenyl diphosphate. The ddsA gene coding for DPS from Gluconobacter suboxydans was expressed under the control of an Escherichia coli constitutive promoter. Analysis of the cell extract in recombinant E. coli BL21/pACDdsA by high performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry showed that CoQ(10) rather than endogenous CoQ(8) was biologically synthesized as the major coenzyme Q. Expression of the ddsA gene with low copy number led to the accumulation of CoQ(10) to 0.97 mg l(-1) in batch fermentation. A high cell density (103 g l(-1)) in fed-batch fermentation of E. coli BL21/pACDdsA increased the CoQ(10) concentration to 25.5 mg l (-1) and its productivity to 0.67 mg l(-1) h(-1), which were 26.0 and 6.9 times higher than the corresponding values for batch fermentation.

Sufficient supply of NADPH is one of the most important factors affecting the productivity of biotransformation processes. In this study, construction of an efficient NADPH-regenerating system was attempted using direct phosphorylation of NADH by NADH kinase (Pos5p) from Saccharomyces cerevisiae for producing guanosine diphosphate (GDP)-L-fucose and ε-caprolactone in recombinant Escherichia coli. Expression of Pos5p in a fed-batch culture of recombinant E. coli producing GDP-L-fucose resulted in a maximum GDP-L-fucose concentration of 291.5 mg/l, which corresponded to a 51 % enhancement compared with the control strain. In a fed-batch Baeyer-Villiger (BV) oxidation of cyclohexanone using recombinant E. coli expressing Pos5p, a maximum ε-caprolactone concentration of 21.6 g/l was obtained, which corresponded to a 96 % enhancement compared with the control strain. Such an increase might be due to the enhanced availability of NADPH in recombinant E. coli expressing Pos5p. These results suggested that efficient regeneration of NADPH was possible by functional expression of Pos5p in recombinant E. coli, which can be applied to other NADPH-dependent biotransformation processes in E. coli.

Biosynthesis of guanosine 5'-diphosphate-L-fucose (GDP-L-fucose) requires NADPH as a reducing cofactor. In this study, endogenous NADPH regenerating enzymes such as glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH), isocitrate dehydrogenase (Icd), and NADP(+)-dependent malate dehydrogenase (MaeB) were overexpressed to increase GDP-L-fucose production in recombinant Escherichia coli. The effects of overexpression of each NADPH regenerating enzyme on GDP-L-fucose production were investigated in a series of batch and fed-batch fermentations. Batch fermentations showed that overexpression of G6PDH was the most effective for GDP-L-fucose production. However, GDP-L-fucose production was not enhanced by overexpression of G6PDH in the glucose-limited fed-batch fermentation. Hence, a glucose feeding strategy was optimized to enhance GDP-L-fucose production. Fed-batch fermentation with a pH-stat feeding mode for sufficient supply of glucose significantly enhanced GDP-L-fucose production compared with glucose-limited fed-batch fermentation. A maximum GDP-L-fucose concentration of 235.2 ± 3.3 mg l(-1), corresponding to a 21% enhancement in the GDP-L-fucose production compared with the control strain overexpressing GDP-L-fucose biosynthetic enzymes only, was achieved in the pH-stat fed-batch fermentation of the recombinant E. coli overexpressing G6PDH. It was concluded that sufficient glucose supply and efficient NADPH regeneration are crucial for NADPH-dependent GDP-L-fucose production in recombinant E. coli.

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