Improving NADPH availability for natural product biosynthesis in Escherichia coli by metabolic engineering

With microbial production becoming the primary choice for natural product synthesis, increasing precursor and cofactor availability has become a chief hurdle for the generation of efficient production platforms. As such, we employed a stoichiometric-based model to identify combinations of gene knockouts for improving NADPH availability in Escherichia coli. Specifically, two different model objectives were used to identify possible genotypes that exhibited either improved overall NADPH production or an improved flux through an artificial reaction coupling NADPH yield to biomass. The top single, double and triple gene deletion candidates were constructed and as a case study evaluated for their ability to produce two polyphenols, leucocyanidin and (+)-catechin. Each is derived from their common precursor dihydroquercetin using two recombinant NADPH-dependent enzymes: dihydroflavonol 4-reductase and leucoanthocyanidin reductase. The best engineered strain carrying Δpgi, Δppc and ΔpldA deletions accumulated up to 817 mg/L of leucocyanidin and 39 mg/L (+)-catechin in batch culture with 10 g/L glucose in modified M9 medium, a 4-fold and 2-fold increase, respectively, compared to the wild-type control.