초록
<P>2-Phenylethanol (2-PE) is a fragrance widely used in food and cosmetics. Natural 2-PE is preferred in these applications but with high price and very limited availability. Microbial synthesis from glucose or glycerol is an attractive way to produce natural 2-PE, but suffers from low product titer. <I>Escherichia coli</I> NST74-Phe-Sty was engineered to coexpress the <SMALL>L</SMALL>-phenylalanine (<SMALL>L</SMALL>-Phe) biosynthesis pathway and enzyme cascade of <SMALL>L</SMALL>-Phe to 2-PE, producing only 0-0.17 g/L 2-PE from glucose at 22-37 °C due to the incompatibility of the temperature for enzyme expression and activity. Enhanced production of 2-PE (8.4-9.1 g/L) from glucose or glycerol was achieved by coupling of <I>E. coli</I> NST74-Phe expressing the <SMALL>L</SMALL>-Phe biosynthesis pathway for <SMALL>L</SMALL>-Phe production at the optimal temperature of 37 °C with <I>E. coli</I> T7-Sty expressing enzyme cascades of <SMALL>L</SMALL>-Phe to 2-PE at the optimal expression temperature of 22 °C and the optimal biotransformation temperature of 30 °C. The 2-PE titer is 4.7-fold higher than the best reported 2-PE concentration produced from glucose. The coupled strains approach could be generally applicable for enhancing microbial production of useful chemicals from sugars or glycerol.</P><P>A novel coupled strains strategy was developed for the production of natural 2-phenylethanol from glucose or glycerol at high concentration.</P><BR>[FIG OMISSION]</BR>