Heterologous production of the lipopeptide biosurfactant serrawettin W1 in Escherichia coli

•The non-ionic lipopeptide serrawettin W1 is a biosurfactant produced by Serratia marcescens.•Serrawettin shows antimicrobial, antitumor and plant protecting properties.•We describe a simple method for the heterologous production of serrawettin in Escherichia coli.•Our method paves the way for the large scale production of this biotechnologically interesting biosurfactant.

The non-ionic biosurfactant serrawettin W1 is a lipopeptide produced by red-pigmented strains of Serratia marcescens which shows antimicrobial, antitumor and plant protecting properties. Here, we report a simple method for heterologous production of this biosurfactant. S. marcescens strain DSM12481 was identified as a novel serrawettin W1 producer and the respective nonribosomal peptide synthetase gene swrW was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 Gold. Chemical analysis of heterologous serrawettin W1 revealed that E. coli mainly produced serrawettin with C10 fatty acids as does S. marcescens. Additionally, serrawettin species with longer fatty acids (C13, C14) were detected in S. marcescens which were absent in E. coli. The expression system described here paves the way for the large scale production of this biotechnologically important biosurfactant.