N. Kamada et al., Effect of transketolase modifications on carbon flow to the purine-nucleotide pathway in Corynebacterium ammoniagenes, APPL MICR B, 56(5-6), 2001, pp. 710-717
Transketolase. one of the enzymes in the nonoxidative branch of the pentose
phosphate pathway, operates to shuttle ribose 5-phosphate and glycolytic i
ntermediates together with transaldolase, and might be involved in the avai
lability of ribose 5-phosphate, a precursor of nucleotide biosynthesis. The
tkt and tal genes encoding transketolase and transaldolase, respectively,
were cloned from the typical nucleotide, and nucleoside-producing organism
Corynebacterium ammoniagenes by a PCR approach using oligonucleotide primer
s derived from conserved regions of each amino acid sequence from other org
anisms. Enzymatic and molecular analyses revealed that the two genes were c
lustered on the genome together with the glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase
gene (zwf). The effect of transketolase modifications on the production of
inosine and 5 ' -xanthylic acid was investigated in industrial strains of C
. ammoniagenes. Multiple copies of plasmid-borne tkt caused about tenfold i
ncreases in transketolase activity and resulted in 10-20% decreased yields
of products relative to the parents. In contrast. site-specific disruption
of tkt enabled both producers to accumulate 10-30% more products concurrent
ly with a complete loss of transketolase activity and the expected phenotyp
e of shikimate auxotrophy. These results indicate that transketolase normal
ly shunts ribose 5-phosphate back into glycolysis in these biosynthetic pro
cesses and interception of this shunt allows cells to redirect carbon flux
through the oxidative pentose pathway from the intermediate towards the pur
ine-nucleotide pathway.