Metabolic engineering of Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 for improvement of 1,3-propanediol and glycerol production based on in silico simulation of metabolic flux distribution

Production directly from carbon dioxide by engineered cyanobacteria is one of the promising technologies for sustainable future. Previously, we have successfully achieved 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PDO) production using Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 with a synthetic metabolic pathway. The strain into which the synthetic metabolic pathway was introduced produced 3.48 mM (0.265 g/L) 1,3-PDO and 14.3 mM (1.32 g/L) glycerol during 20 days of incubation. In this study, the productivities of 1,3-PDO were improved by gene disruption selected by screening with in silico simulation. First, a stoichiometric metabolic model was applied to prediction of cellular metabolic flux distribution in a 1,3-PDO-producing strain of S. elongatus PCC 7942. A genome-scale model of S. elongatus PCC 7942 constructed by Knoop was modified by the addition of a synthetic metabolic pathway for 1,3-PDO production. Next, the metabolic flux distribution predicted by metabolic flux balance analysis (FBA) was used for in silico simulation of gene disruption. As a result of gene disruption simulation, NADPH dehydrogenase 1 (NDH-1) complexes were found by screening to be the most promising candidates for disruption to improve 1,3-PDO production. The effect of disruption of the gene encoding a subunit of the NDH-1 complex was evaluated in the 1,3-PDO-producing strain. During 20 days of incubation, the ndhF1-null 1,3-PDO-producing strain showed the highest titers: 4.44 mM (0.338 g/L) 1,3-PDO and 30.3 mM (2.79 g/L) glycerol. In this study, we successfully improved 1,3-PDO productivity on the basis of in silico simulation of gene disruption.