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Maximizing Heterologous Expression of Engineered Type I Polyketide Synthases: Investigating Codon Optimization Strategies.

ABSTRACT: Type I polyketide synthases (T1PKSs) hold enormous potential as a rational production platform for the biosynthesis of specialty chemicals. However, despite great progress in this field, the heterologous expression of PKSs remains a major challenge. One of the first measures to improve heterologous gene expression can be codon optimization. Although controversial, choosing the wrong codon optimization strategy can have detrimental effects on the protein and product levels. In this study, we analyzed 11 different codon variants of an engineered T1PKS and investigated in a systematic approach their influence on heterologous expression in Corynebacterium glutamicum, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas putida. Our best performing codon variants exhibited a minimum 50-fold increase in PKS protein levels, which also enabled the production of an unnatural polyketide in each of these hosts. Furthermore, we developed a free online tool (https://basebuddy.lbl.gov) that offers transparent and highly customizable codon optimization with up-to-date codon usage tables. In this work, we not only highlight the significance of codon optimization but also establish the groundwork for the high-throughput assembly and characterization of PKS pathways in alternative hosts.

SUBMITTER: Schmidt M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10661030 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Maximizing Heterologous Expression of Engineered Type I Polyketide Synthases: Investigating Codon Optimization Strategies.

Schmidt Matthias M Lee Namil N Zhan Chunjun C Roberts Jacob B JB Nava Alberto A AA Keiser Leah S LS Vilchez Aaron A AA Chen Yan Y Petzold Christopher J CJ Haushalter Robert W RW Blank Lars M LM Keasling Jay D JD

ACS synthetic biology 20231018 11

Type I polyketide synthases (T1PKSs) hold enormous potential as a rational production platform for the biosynthesis of specialty chemicals. However, despite great progress in this field, the heterologous expression of PKSs remains a major challenge. One of the first measures to improve heterologous gene expression can be codon optimization. Although controversial, choosing the wrong codon optimization strategy can have detrimental effects on the protein and product levels. In this study, we anal ...[more]

PMID: 37851920

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Project description:Bacterial aromatic polyketides such as tetracycline and doxorubicin are a medicinally important class of natural products produced as secondary metabolites by actinomyces bacteria. Their backbones are derived from malonyl-CoA units by polyketide synthases (PKSs). The nascent polyketide chain is synthesized by the minimal PKS, a module consisting of four dissociated enzymes. Although the biosynthesis of most aromatic polyketide backbones is initiated through decarboxylation of a malonyl building block (which results in an acetate group), some polyketides, such as the estrogen receptor antagonist R1128, are derived from nonacetate primers. Understanding the mechanism of nonacetate priming can lead to biosynthesis of novel polyketides that have improved pharmacological properties. Recent biochemical analysis has shown that nonacetate priming is the result of stepwise activity of two dissociated PKS modules with orthogonal molecular recognition features. In these PKSs, an initiation module that synthesizes a starter unit is present in addition to the minimal PKS module. Here we describe a general method for the engineered biosynthesis of regioselectively modified aromatic polyketides. When coexpressed with the R1128 initiation module, the actinorhodin minimal PKS produced novel hexaketides with propionyl and isobutyryl primer units. Analogous octaketides could be synthesized by combining the tetracenomycin minimal PKS with the R1128 initiation module. Tailoring enzymes such as ketoreductases and cyclases were able to process the unnatural polyketides efficiently. Based upon these findings, hybrid PKSs were engineered to synthesize new anthraquinone antibiotics with predictable functional group modifications. Our results demonstrate that (i) bimodular aromatic PKSs present a general mechanism for priming aromatic polyketide backbones with nonacetate precursors; (ii) the minimal PKS controls polyketide chain length by counting the number of atoms incorporated into the backbone rather than the number of elongation cycles; and (iii) in contrast, auxiliary PKS enzymes such as ketoreductases, aromatases, and cyclases recognize specific functional groups in the backbone rather than overall chain length. Among the anthracyclines engineered in this study were compounds with (i) more superior activity than R1128 against the breast cancer cell line MCF-7 and (ii) inhibitory activity against glucose-6-phosphate translocase, an attractive target for the treatment of Type II diabetes.

Project description:BACKGROUND: Bacterial aromatic polyketides are a pharmacologically important group of natural products synthesized by type II polyketide synthases (type II PKSs) in actinobacteria. Isolation of novel aromatic polyketides from microbial sources is currently impeded because of the lack of knowledge about prolific taxa for polyketide synthesis and the difficulties in finding and optimizing target microorganisms. Comprehensive analysis of type II PKSs and the prediction of possible polyketide chemotypes in various actinobacterial genomes will thus enable the discovery or synthesis of novel polyketides in the most plausible microorganisms. DESCRIPTION: We performed a comprehensive computational analysis of type II PKSs and their gene clusters in actinobacterial genomes. By identifying type II PKS subclasses from the sequence analysis of 280 known type II PKSs, we developed highly accurate domain classifiers for these subclasses and derived prediction rules for aromatic polyketide chemotypes generated by different combinations of type II PKS domains. Using 319 available actinobacterial genomes, we predicted 231 type II PKSs from 40 PKS gene clusters in 25 actinobacterial genomes, and polyketide chemotypes corresponding to 22 novel PKS gene clusters in 16 genomes. These results showed that the microorganisms capable of producing aromatic polyketides are specifically distributed within a certain suborder of Actinomycetales such as Catenulisporineae, Frankineae, Micrococcineae, Micromonosporineae, Pseudonocardineae, Streptomycineae, and Streptosporangineae. CONCLUSIONS: We could identify the novel candidates of type II PKS gene clusters and their polyketide chemotypes in actinobacterial genomes by comprehensive analysis of type II PKSs and prediction of aromatic polyketides. The genome analysis results indicated that the specific suborders in actinomycetes could be used as prolific taxa for polyketide synthesis. The chemotype-prediction rules with the suggested type II PKS modules derived using this resource can be used further for microbial engineering to produce various aromatic polyketides. All these resources, together with the results of the analysis, are organized into an easy-to-use database PKMiner, which is accessible at the following URL: http://pks.kaist.ac.kr/pkminer. We believe that this web-based tool would be useful for research in the discovery of novel bacterial aromatic polyketides.

Dataset Information

Maximizing Heterologous Expression of Engineered Type I Polyketide Synthases: Investigating Codon Optimization Strategies.

Publications

Maximizing Heterologous Expression of Engineered Type I Polyketide Synthases: Investigating Codon Optimization Strategies.

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