Cij. Andersson et al., Error-prone PCR of Vitreoscilla hemoglobin (VHb) to support the growth of microaerobic Escherichia coli, BIOTECH BIO, 70(4), 2000, pp. 446-455
Expression of the gene encoding bacterial hemoglobin (VHb) from Vitreoscill
a has been previously used to improve recombinant cell growth and enhance p
roduct formation under microaerobic conditions. It is very likely that the
properties of VHb are not optimized for foreign hosts; therefore, we used e
rror-prone PCR to generate a number of randomly mutated vhb genes to be exp
ressed and studied in Escherichia coli. in addition, the mutated VHb protei
ns also contained an extension of eight residues (MTMITPSF) at the amino te
rminus. VHb mutants were screened for improved growth properties under micr
oaerobic conditions and 15 clones expressing mutated hemoglobin protein wer
e selected for further characterization and cultivated in a microaerobic bi
oreactor to analyze the physiological effects of novel VHb proteins on cell
growth. The expression of four VHb mutants, carried by pVM20, pVM50, pVM10
4, and pVM134, were able to enhance microaerobic growth of E. coli by appro
ximately 22%, 155%, 50%, and 90%, respectively, with a concomitant decrease
of acetate excretion into the culture medium. The vhb gene in pVM20 contai
ns two mutations substituting residues Glu19(A17) and Glu137(H23) to Gly. p
VM50 expresses a VHb protein carrying two mutations: His36(C1) to Arg36 and
Gln66(E20) to Arg66. pVM104 and pVM134 express VHb proteins carrying the m
utations Ala56(E10) to Gly and Ile24(B5) to Thr, respectively. Our experime
nts also indicate that the positive effects elicited by mutant VHb-expressi
on from pVM20 and pVM50 are linked to the peptide tail. Removal of the N-te
rminal sequence reduced cell growth approximately 23% and 53%, respectively
, relative to wild-type controls. These results clearly demonstrate that it
is possible to obtain mutated VHb proteins with improved characteristics f
or improving microaerobic growth of E. coli by using combined mutation tech
niques, addition of a peptide tail, and random error-prone PCR. (C) 2000 Jo
hn Wiley & Sons, Inc.