Developing a thermophilic cell factory for high-temperature production of 1,3-propanediol via host-mining and metabolic engineering

Because of the discovery of various thermophiles, high-temperature fermentation is an emerging technology for efficient biomanufacturing with decreased cooling cost and risk for contamination. This study reveals a data-driven host-mining strategy for selecting thermophilic hosts that are desired for producing various target products by leveraging publicly available big data from genome sequencing. Using 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PDO) as a target product, a desired production host, Parageobacillus thermoglucosidasius, was identified and engineered. The systematically constructed strain was extensively modified to develop a preferable 1,3-PDO producer, and the engineered strain could produce 1,3-PDO with a titer of 5.9 g/L in flask fermentation at an extremely high temperature (60°C). The bottleneck in glycerol metabolism in P. thermoglucosidasius was then analyzed using transcriptome analysis. This study enables microbial production of 1,3-PDO at the current highest fermentation temperature and demonstrates effectiveness and feasibility of our host-mining strategy for various products.