Construction of an energy-conserving glycerol utilization pathways for improving anaerobic succinate production in Escherichia coli

Metabolic engineering of microorganisms for production of succinate from glycerol remains challenging. It was thought that energy supply is a severe problem for anaerobic fermentation of glycerol to produce succinate. In this study, an energy-conserving glycerol utilization pathway was recruited to improve anaerobic succinate production in Escherichia coli. ATP dependent dihydroxyacetone kinase (DhaK) from Klebsiella was used to replace the native phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) dependent dihydroxyacetone kinase (DhaKLM) of E. coli so that 2 NADH, instead of 1 NADH and 1 menaquinol, can be produced from glycerol to PEP. Besides consumption of 1 NADH and 1 menaquinol for converting PEP to succinate, NADH dehydrogenase I transfers electrons from 1 NADH to 1 menaquinone and pumps 4 protons. Proton-motive force are generated as the additional energy to support cell growth and succinate export. After using this energy-conserving glycerol utilization pathway, succinate titer, productivity and intercellular ATP content increased 282%, 63% and 338% respectively. The best strain YY-GS004 produced 483 mM succinate in 96 h with a yield of 0.92 mol mol-1 glycerol under anaerobic conditions. The specific succinate productivity was 0.47 g g-1 (DCW) h-1, which was the highest one up to date for succinate production from glycerol. This study demonstrated that the energy-conserving glycerol utilization pathway GldA-DhaK can solve the energy problem during anaerobic fermentation of glycerol to produce succinate.