Toward an era of utilizing methionine overproducing hosts for recombinant protein production in Escherichia coli

Amino acid sequence variants, especially variants containing non-canonical amino acids such as norleucine and norvaline, are a concern during therapeutic protein production in microbial systems. Substitution of methionine residues with norleucine in recombinant proteins produced in Escherichia coli is well known. Continuous feeding of amino acids such as methionine is commonly used in E. coli fermentation processes to control incorporation of norleucine in the recombinant protein. There are several disadvantages associated with continuous feeding during a fermentation process. For example, a continuous feed increases the operational complexity and cost of a manufacturing process and results in dilution of culture medium which could result in lower cell densities and product yields. To overcome the limitations of existing approaches to prevent norleucine incorporation during E. coli fermentations, a new approach using an engineered host was developed that overproduces methionine in the cell to prevent norleucine incorporation without negatively impacting fermentation process performance and product yields. In this commentary, the results on using methionine overproducing hosts for recombinant protein production in E. coli and some "watch outs" when using these hosts for recombinant protein production are discussed.