ME: An Integrated Metabolic Engineering Study of Evolved Alcohol Acetyl Transferase Enzymes in Flavor Compound Formation in E. coli

William Marsh Rice University, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of the proposed research is to study the microbial production of flavor compounds based on metabolic and genetic engineering. The primary objective is to investigate the response of the central metabolic pathway in Escherichia coli in the presence of perturbations in the cofactor CoA. The specific goals of the research are to: (1) study the redistribution of metabolic fluxes in E. coli with alteration of CoA metabolism by the use of mutant strains with perturbations either in the synthesis or in the usage pathways of the cofactor CoA, (2) examine the effect of these genetic manipulations on the cellular capacity to produce flavor compounds under defined bioreactor experiments, and (3) perform directed evolution of the alcohol acetyltransferase to alter its specificity to make a different pattern of esters. The framework developed in this research could be applied to the improvement of metabolic function for bioprocess applications related to biobased industrial products.