Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli for the production of malic acid

Malic acid is a C4-dicarboxylic acid and an intermediate of tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. It has been widely used in the polymer, food and pharmaceutical industries. Metabolic flux analysis was performed to find a strategy for enhanced malic acid production in Escherichia coli. The simulation results suggested that the amplification of phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) carboxylation flux allowed increased malic acid production. Since the PEP carboxylase of E. coli converts PEP to oxaloacetate without generating ATP, thus losing the high-energy phosphate bond of PEP, the PEP carboxykinase, which generates ATP during this conversion, was chosen. However, the E. coli PEP carboxykinase catalyzes the reaction that converts oxaloacetate to PEP rather than the desirable opposite reaction. Thus, we cloned the PEP carboxykinase (enconded by the pckA gene) of Mannheimia succiniciproducens, which converts PEP to oxaloacetate as a favorable reaction. The pta mutant E. coli strain WGS-10 harboring the plasmid p104ManPck containing the M. succiniciproducens pckA gene was constructed and cultured at 37 °C. The final malic acid concentration of 9.25 g/L could be obtained after 12 h of aerobic cultivation.