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Beneficial knockouts in Escherichia coli for producing hydrogen from glycerol

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Abstract

Glycerol is an inexpensive and abundant source for biofuel production on a large scale. Escherichia coli is a robust bacterium for producing hydrogen; however, its hydrogen productivity from glycerol is low. In this study, we conducted random transposon mutagenesis to identify uncharacterized genes whose inactivation is beneficial for hydrogen production from glycerol. Through screening, four mutant strains were found that are able to have from 1.3- to 1.6-fold higher hydrogen productivity (μmol H2/mg protein) than that of their parent strain (p < 0.05). These mutations were identified as aroM, gatZ, ycgR, and yfgI. The hydrogen yield (mol H2/mol glycerol consumed) of the aroM, gatZ, ycgR, and yfgI strains was 1.7-, 1.4-, 2.4-, and 2.1-fold higher than that of their parent strain, respectively. Moreover, a single disruption in these genes resulted in a faster cell growth and glycerol consumption under anaerobic conditions. In E. coli, AroM is predicted to be involved in the shikimate pathway, GatZ is tagatose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase 2 which converts dihydroxyacetone phosphate to 1,6-biphosphate, and YcgR acts as a molecular brake limiting the swimming speed and ATP consumption. So far, the function of YfgI in general and in hydrogen production in particular remains unknown.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Japan Student Services Organization for providing the scholarship of K. T. Tran during this study. This research was supported by the JGC-S Scholarship Foundation. Many thanks to the NBRP-E. coli at the National Institute of Genetics (Japan) for providing Keio mutant strains.

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We declare that we do not have any conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Functions Engineering, Graduate School of Life Science and Systems Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, 2-4 Hibikino, Wakamatsu-ku, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, 808-0196, Japan

    Kien Trung Tran & Toshinari Maeda

  2. Research Center for Advanced Eco-fitting Technology, Kyushu Institute of Technology, 2-4 Hibikino, Wakamatsu-ku, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, 808-0196, Japan

    Toshinari Maeda

  3. Escuela de Ingeniería Química, Universidad Industrial de Santander, A.A. 678, Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia

    Viviana Sanchez-Torres

  4. Department of Chemical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802-4400, USA

    Thomas K. Wood

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  1. Kien Trung Tran
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  2. Toshinari Maeda
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  3. Viviana Sanchez-Torres
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  4. Thomas K. Wood
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Correspondence to Toshinari Maeda.

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Tran, K.T., Maeda, T., Sanchez-Torres, V. et al. Beneficial knockouts in Escherichia coli for producing hydrogen from glycerol. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 99, 2573–2581 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-6338-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-6338-7

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