TY - JOUR

T1 - Comparison of Genome and Plasmid-Based Engineering of Multigene Benzylglucosinolate Pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

AU - Wang, Cuiwei

AU - Poborsky, Michal

AU - Crocoll, Christoph

AU - Nødvig, Christina Spuur

AU - Mortensen, Uffe Hasbro

AU - Halkier, Barbara Ann

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 American Society for Microbiology.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Intake of brassicaceous vegetables such as cabbage is associated with numerous health benefits. The major defense compounds in the Brassicales order are the amino acid-derived glucosinolates that have been associated with the health-promoting effects. This has primed a desire to build glucosinolate-producing microbial cell factories as a stable and reliable source. Here, we established-for the first time-production of the phenylalanine-derived benzylglucosinolate (BGLS) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae using two different engineering strategies: stable genome integration versus plasmid-based introduction of the biosynthetic genes. Although the plasmid-engineered strain showed a tendency to generate higher expression level of each gene (except CYP83B1) in the biosynthetic pathway, the genome-engineered strain produced 8.4-fold higher BGLS yield compared to the plasmid-engineered strain. Additionally, we optimized the genome-engineered strain by overexpressing the entry point genes CYP79A2 and CYP83B1, resulting in a 2-fold increase in BGLS production but also a 4.8-fold increase in the level of the last intermediate desulfo-benzylglucosinolate (dsBGLS). We applied several approaches to alleviate the metabolic bottleneck in the step where dsBGLS is converted to BGLS by sulfotransferase, SOT16 dependent on 39-phosphoadenosine-59-phosphosulfate (PAPS). BGLS production increased 1.7-fold by overexpressing SOT16 and 1.7-fold by introducing APS kinase, APK1, from Arabidopsis thaliana involved in the PAPS regeneration cycle. Modulating the endogenous sulfur assimilatory pathway through overexpression of MET3 and MET14 resulted in 2.4-fold to 12.81 mmol/L (=5.2 mg/L) for BGLS production. IMPORTANCE Intake of brassicaceous vegetables such as cabbage is associated with numerous health benefits. The major defense compounds in the Brassicales order are the amino acid-derived glucosinolates that have been associated with the health-promoting effects. This has primed a desire to build glucosinolate-producing microbial cell factories as a stable and reliable source. In this study, we engineered for the first time the production of phenylalanine-derived benzylglucosinolate in Saccharomyces cerevisiae with two engineering strategies: stable genome integration versus plasmid-based introduction of the biosynthetic genes. Although the plasmid-engineered strain generally showed higher expression level of each gene (except CYP83B1) in the biosynthetic pathway, the genome-engineered strain produced higher production level of benzylglucosinolate. Based on the genome-engineered strain, the benzylglucosinolate level was improved by optimization. Our study compared different approaches to engineer a multigene pathway for production of the plant natural product benzylglucosinolate. This may provide potential application in industrial biotechnology.

AB - Intake of brassicaceous vegetables such as cabbage is associated with numerous health benefits. The major defense compounds in the Brassicales order are the amino acid-derived glucosinolates that have been associated with the health-promoting effects. This has primed a desire to build glucosinolate-producing microbial cell factories as a stable and reliable source. Here, we established-for the first time-production of the phenylalanine-derived benzylglucosinolate (BGLS) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae using two different engineering strategies: stable genome integration versus plasmid-based introduction of the biosynthetic genes. Although the plasmid-engineered strain showed a tendency to generate higher expression level of each gene (except CYP83B1) in the biosynthetic pathway, the genome-engineered strain produced 8.4-fold higher BGLS yield compared to the plasmid-engineered strain. Additionally, we optimized the genome-engineered strain by overexpressing the entry point genes CYP79A2 and CYP83B1, resulting in a 2-fold increase in BGLS production but also a 4.8-fold increase in the level of the last intermediate desulfo-benzylglucosinolate (dsBGLS). We applied several approaches to alleviate the metabolic bottleneck in the step where dsBGLS is converted to BGLS by sulfotransferase, SOT16 dependent on 39-phosphoadenosine-59-phosphosulfate (PAPS). BGLS production increased 1.7-fold by overexpressing SOT16 and 1.7-fold by introducing APS kinase, APK1, from Arabidopsis thaliana involved in the PAPS regeneration cycle. Modulating the endogenous sulfur assimilatory pathway through overexpression of MET3 and MET14 resulted in 2.4-fold to 12.81 mmol/L (=5.2 mg/L) for BGLS production. IMPORTANCE Intake of brassicaceous vegetables such as cabbage is associated with numerous health benefits. The major defense compounds in the Brassicales order are the amino acid-derived glucosinolates that have been associated with the health-promoting effects. This has primed a desire to build glucosinolate-producing microbial cell factories as a stable and reliable source. In this study, we engineered for the first time the production of phenylalanine-derived benzylglucosinolate in Saccharomyces cerevisiae with two engineering strategies: stable genome integration versus plasmid-based introduction of the biosynthetic genes. Although the plasmid-engineered strain generally showed higher expression level of each gene (except CYP83B1) in the biosynthetic pathway, the genome-engineered strain produced higher production level of benzylglucosinolate. Based on the genome-engineered strain, the benzylglucosinolate level was improved by optimization. Our study compared different approaches to engineer a multigene pathway for production of the plant natural product benzylglucosinolate. This may provide potential application in industrial biotechnology.

KW - gene copy number

KW - genome integration

KW - glucosinolate

KW - Saccharomyces cerevisiae

KW - targeted proteomics

U2 - 10.1128/aem.00978-22

DO - 10.1128/aem.00978-22

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 36326240

AN - SCOPUS:85142918660

VL - 88

JO - Applied and Environmental Microbiology

JF - Applied and Environmental Microbiology

SN - 0099-2240

IS - 22

M1 - e00978-22

ER -