Engineering sucrose uptake and phosphorolysis in Escherichia coli

• Grant number: 19/08845-6
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2019
• End date: August 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Food Science and Technology - Food Engineering
• Agreement: Delft University of Technology
• Mobility Program: SPRINT - Projetos de pesquisa - Mobilidade
• Principal Investigator: Thiago Olitta Basso
• Grantee: Thiago Olitta Basso
• Principal researcher abroad: Sebastian Aljoscha Wahl
• Institution abroad: Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Netherlands
• Principal researcher abroad: Walter van Gulik
• Institution abroad: Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Netherlands
• Host Institution: Escola Politécnica (EP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Karel Olavarria Gamez
• Associated research grant: 18/17172-2 - How do fuel ethanol yeasts and contaminating lactic acid bacteria respond toward lignocellulosic-derived inhibitors?, AP.R

Abstract

Sucrose is an abundant, easy to assimilate and cheap carbon source. Moreover, sucrose phosphorolysis could increase the ATP conservation, widening the feasibility space for anaerobic bioprocesses. However, using the currently known mechanisms, the uptake of sucrose costs energy, impedes the sucrose phosphorolysis or depends on a sucrose gradient between the medium and the cytoplasm. A possibility to solve these problems is the implementation of a sucrose phosphotransferase system (PTS) delivering sucrose-6'-phosphate followed by the intracellular phosphorolysis of this sugar-phosphate. However, to the best of our knowledge, no PTS delivering sucrose-6'-phosphate had been described. Based on the predicted amino acid sequences, putative genes encoding for the proteins required for this kind of PTS were identified in Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum. Nevertheless, the in vivo evaluation of the functionality of such systems has not been performed yet. Here we propose a strategy to (1) characterize the so far identified candidates and (2) perform computational and functional screenings to detect other candidate genes among (industrial) lactic acid bacteria capable to grow on sucrose under anaerobic conditions. (AU)