A Rare Mono-Rhamnolipid Congener Efficiently Produced by Recombinant Pseudomonas aeruginosa YM4 via the Expression of Global Transcriptional Regulator irrE

Rhamnolipids (RLs) are widely used biosurfactants produced mainly by and spp. in the form of mixtures of diverse congeners. The global transcriptional regulator gene from radiation-tolerant extremophiles has been widely used as a stress-resistant element to construct robust producer strains and improve their production performance. A P - cassette was constructed to express genes in the YM4 of the rhamnolipids producer strain. We found that the expression of of in the YM4 strain not only enhanced rhamnolipid production and the strain's tolerance to environmental stresses, but also changed the composition of the rhamnolipid products. The synthesized rhamnolipids reached a maximum titer of 26 g/L, about 17.9% higher than the original, at 48 h. The rhamnolipid production of the recombinant strain was determined to be mono-rhamnolipids congener Rha-C -C , accounting for 94.1% of total products. The critical micelle concentration (CMC) value of the Rha-C -C products was 62.5 mg/L and the air-water surface tension decreased to 25.5 mN/m. The Rha-C -C products showed better emulsifying activity on diesel oil than the original products. This is the first report on the efficient production of the rare mono-rhamnolipids congener Rha-C -C and the first report that the global regulator can change the components of rhamnolipid products in .