Gómez-Coronado Paul A, Kubis Armin, Kowald Maria, Ute Rahma, Cotton Charlie, Lindner Steffen N, Bar-Even Arren, Erb Tobias J
Department of Biochemistry and Synthetic Metabolism, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Karl-von-Frisch-Str. 10, Marburg, Hessen 35043, Germany.
Research Group Systems and Synthetic Metabolism, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Am Mühlenberg 1, Potsdam-Golm, Brandenburg 14476, Germany.
Synth Biol (Oxf). 2025 Apr 4;10(1):ysaf004. doi: 10.1093/synbio/ysaf004. eCollection 2025.
Glycolaldehyde (GA), the smallest sugar, has significant potential as a biomass-derived platform chemical and is a key metabolite in several synthetic pathways for one-carbon metabolism and new-to-nature photorespiration. This study introduces two metabolic schemes for engineering into GA biosensors. Through creating GA-dependent auxotrophies, we link growth of these strains to GA-dependent biosynthesis of the essential vitamin pyridoxal-5-phosphate, and 2-ketoglutarate, respectively. We characterized and optimized these strains for the quantification of externally added GA from 2 µM to 1.5 mM. We also demonstrate the capability of these strains to detect GA that is produced intracellularly through different metabolic routes and from different substrates such as xylose, ethylene glycol, and glycolate. Our biosensors offer complementary sensitivities and features, opening up different applications in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, which we demonstrate in a proof-of-principle by providing the first demonstration of the reduction of glycolate to GA by a new-to-nature route using engineered enzymes.
乙醇醛（GA）是最小的糖类，作为一种源自生物质的平台化学品具有巨大潜力，并且是一碳代谢和新型光呼吸的几种合成途径中的关键代谢物。本研究介绍了两种用于构建GA生物传感器的代谢方案。通过创建依赖GA的营养缺陷型，我们分别将这些菌株的生长与必需维生素磷酸吡哆醛和2-酮戊二酸的GA依赖性生物合成联系起来。我们对这些菌株进行了表征和优化，以定量从2μM到1.5mM的外部添加的GA。我们还展示了这些菌株检测通过不同代谢途径和来自不同底物（如木糖、乙二醇和乙醇酸）在细胞内产生的GA的能力。我们的生物传感器具有互补的灵敏度和特性，为代谢工程和合成生物学开辟了不同的应用，我们通过使用工程酶首次证明了通过新型途径将乙醇酸还原为GA的原理验证对此进行了展示。
