Characterization and regulation of the 2,3-butanediol pathway in Serratia marcescens.

Ben Rao, Liao Yuan Zhang, Jian'an Sun, Gang Su, Dongzhi Wei, Ju Chu, Jiawen Zhu, Yaling Shen

State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering, New World Institute of Biotechnology, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, People's Republic of China.

Applied microbiology and biotechnology 2012 Mar

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Serratia marcescens has been proved to be a potential strain for industrial 2,3-butanediol production for its high yield, productivity, and other advantages. In this study, the genes slaA, slaB, slaC, and slaR were successfully cloned which were further confirmed to be encoding acetolactate decarboxylase, acetolactate synthase, 2,3-butanediol dehydrogenase, and a LysR-like regulator, respectively. Unlike in Klebsiella sp. or Klebsiella pneumonie and Vibrio sp. or Vibrio cholerae, the gene slaC is separated from other genes. Then it showed that two regulators, SwrR and SlaR, are in charge of this process by exerting effect on the transcription of genes slaA and slaB. By contrast, the expression of gene slaC is unaffected by the two regulators. It means that these two regulators affect the production of 2,3-butanediol by regulating the production of acetoin. Based on these findings, we successfully accelerated the 2,3-butanediol production by inactivation of gene swrR. The obtained results and further investigations should lead to a more suitable fermentation strategy and strain improvement which would be applicable to the industrial production of 2,3-butanediol.

Citation

Ben Rao, Liao Yuan Zhang, Jian'an Sun, Gang Su, Dongzhi Wei, Ju Chu, Jiawen Zhu, Yaling Shen. Characterization and regulation of the 2,3-butanediol pathway in Serratia marcescens. Applied microbiology and biotechnology. 2012 Mar;93(5):2147-59