Reconstructing ethanol oxidation pathway in Pseudomonas putida KT2440 for bio-upgrading of ethanol to biodegradable polyhydroxybutanoates

Ethanol has recently been demonstrated as a suitable carbon source for acetyl-CoA-derived products with high theoretical yield. Herein, the short-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanoates production pathway was constructed in an industrial platform P. putida KT2440, allowing the engineered strain to produce 674.97 +/- 22.3 mg/L of Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) from ethanol as sole carbon source. Furthermore, the ethanol catabolic pathway was reconstructed to enhance the acetyl-coA pool by expressing the novel Aldehyde dehydrogenases from Klebsiella pneumonia and Dickeya zeae, resulting in a titer of 1385.34 +/- 16.5 mg/L and 9300 +/- 0.56 mg/L of PHB in shake flask and fermenter, respectively. Furthermore, transcriptome analysis was conducted to provide insights into the central metabolic pathways and different expression patterns in response to changes in substrate. Additionally, the production of co-polymer poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxypropionate) was shown using glycerol and ethanol as co-substrates from recombinant P. putida KT2440. This work demonstrates the potential of P. putida KT2440 as a promising industrial platform for short-chain-length PHAs production from structurally unrelated carbon sources.

Automated summary

This study constructed a production pathway for short-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) in P. putida KT2440 and enhanced the product yield by reconstructing the ethanol catabolic pathway. Transcriptome analysis was conducted to gain insights into central metabolic pathways and gene expression patterns in response to substrate changes. Furthermore, the potential of P. putida KT2440 for producing copolymers from different carbon sources was demonstrated.