Styrene production from a biomass-derived carbon source using a coculture system of phenylalanine ammonia lyase and phenylacrylic acid decarboxylase-expressing Streptomyces lividans transformants.

To produce styrene from a biomass-derived carbon source, Streptomyces lividans was adopted as a host strain. The gene encoding ferulic acid decarboxylase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (FDC1) was introduced into S. lividans, and the resulting S. lividans transformant successfully expressed FDC1 and converted trans-cinnamic acid (CA) to styrene. A key factor in styrene production using microbes is the recovery of volatile styrene. In the present study, we selected polystyrene resin beads XRD-4 as the absorbent agent to recover styrene produced using S. lividans transformants, which enabled recovery of styrene from the culture broth. For styrene production from biomass-derived carbon sources, S. lividans/FDC1 was cultured together with S. lividans/p-encP, which we previously reported as a CA-producing S. lividans strain. This coculture system combined with the recovery of styrene using XAD-4 allowed the production of styrene from glucose, cellobiose, or xylo-oligosaccharide, respectively.