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Improvement in the Production of L-Lysine by Overexpression of Aspartokinase (ASK) in <i>C. glutamicum</i> ATCC 21799


H Rastegari
M Chiani
A Akbarzadeh
S Cheraghi
Z Saffari
MR Mehrabi
A Farhangi
S Ghassemi

Abstract

Purpose: To clone Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC21799 aspartokinase gene (EC 2.7.2.4) using shuttle expression vector pEKEx2 in order to increase lysine production.
Methods: C. glutamicum DNA was extracted and used for amplification of aspartokinase gene (ask) by cloning into an E. coli/C. glutamicum shuttle expression vector, pEKEx2. Initially, the recombinant vector transformed into E. coli DH5á and then into C. glutamicum.
Results: Electrophoresis of recombinant protein by SDS-PAGE showed that the molecular weight of the recombinant protein was 42 KD. The induction of recombinant vector by IPTG had an inhibitory effect on cell growth due to over-expression of the cloned gene. The results of lysine assay by Chinard method showed that lysine production increased about two-fold, compared with the parent strain, as a result of increased copy numbers of lysC gene in recombinant strain.

Conclusion: A two-fold increase in lysine production was observed by cloning of the ASK gene in C. glutamicum rather than in E. coli, due to the presence of lysine exporter channel which facilitates lysine extraction.

Keywords: LysC gene, Corynebacterium glutamicum, L- lysine, Cloning, Aspartokinase, E. coli


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eISSN: 1596-9827
print ISSN: 1596-5996