Improved 1, 2, 4-butanetriol production from an engineered Escherichia coli by co-expression of different chaperone proteins

1, 2, 4-Butanetriol (BT) is a high-value non-natural chemical and has important applications in polymers, medical production and military industry. In the constructed BT biosynthesis pathway from xylose in Escherichia coli, the xylose dehydrogenase (Xdh) and the benzoylformate decarboxylase (MdlC) are heterologous enzymes and the activity of MdlC is the key limiting factor for BT production. In this study, six chaperone protein systems were introduced into the engineered E. coli harboring the recombinant BT pathway. The chaperone GroES–GroEL was beneficial to Xdh activity but had a negative effect on MdlC activity and BT titer. The plasmid pTf16 containing the tig gene (trigger factor) was beneficial to Xdh and MdlC activities and improved the BT titer from 0.42 to 0.56 g/l from 20 g/l xylose. However, co-expression of trigger factor and GroES–GroEL simultaneously reduced the activity of MdlC and had no effect on the BT production. The plasmid pKJE7 harboring dnaK–dnaJ–grpE showed significant negative effects on these enzyme activities and cell growth, leading to completely restrained the BT production. Similarly, co-expression of DnaKJ–GrpPE and GroES–GroEL simultaneously reduced Xdh and MdlC activities and decreased the BT titer by 45.2 %. The BT production of the engineered E. coli harboring pTf16 was further improved to the highest level at 1.01 g/l under pH control (pH 7). This work showed the potential application of chaperone proteins in microorganism engineering to get high production of target compounds as an effective and valuable tool.