FDH knockout and TsFDH transformation led to enhance growth rate of Escherichia coli

Abstract

Abstract In this study, we sought to reduce the released CO2 into the atmosphere from bacterial growth by reducing formic acid conversion into CO2. Since E. coli is the biotechnological workhorse and its higher growth rate is desirable, another goal was to monitor the bacterial biomass after the metabolic engineering. The conversion of formic acid to CO2 is a crucial reaction. Therefore, we compared the growth of control strains, alongside two strains in which two different genes coding two formate dehydrogenase (FDH) subunits were deleted. The knockout bacteria grew better than the controls. Thiobacillus FDH (TsFDH) transformation increased the growth of both knockouts of E.coli compared with the controls and the knockouts strain without TsFDH. Through a transcriptomics-level analysis of the strain knockout genes, the genes negatively correlated with the target genes were shown to belong to tRNA-related pathways. Observing higher cell biomass for the knockout and transformed strains indicates possible underlying mechanisms leading to reduced carbon leakage and increased carbon assimilation, which need more detailed investigations. Gene expression correlations and pathway analysis outcomes suggested possible over-expression of the genes involved in tRNA processing and charging pathways.