Heterologous production of the D-cycloserine intermediate O-acetyl-L-serine in a human type II pulmonary cell model

Tuberculosis (TB) is the second leading cause of death by a single infectious disease behind COVID-19. Despite a century of effort, the current TB vaccine does not effectively prevent pulmonary TB, promote herd immunity, or prevent transmission. Therefore, alternative approaches are needed. We seek to develop a cell therapy that produces an effective antibiotic in response to TB infection. D-cycloserine (D-CS) is a second-line antibiotic for TB that inhibits bacterial cell wall synthesis. We have determined D-CS to be the optimal candidate for anti-TB cell therapy due to its effectiveness against TB, relatively short biosynthetic pathway, and its low-resistance incidence. The first committed step towards D-CS synthesis is catalyzed by the L-serine-O-acetyltransferase (DcsE) which converts L-serine and acetyl-CoA to O-acetyl-L-serine (L-OAS). To test if the D-CS pathway could be an effective prophylaxis for TB, we endeavored to express functional DcsE in A549 cells as a human pulmonary model. We observed DcsE-FLAG-GFP expression using fluorescence microscopy. DcsE purified from A549 cells catalyzed the synthesis of L-OAS as observed by HPLC–MS. Therefore, human cells synthesize functional DcsE capable of converting L-serine and acetyl-CoA to L-OAS demonstrating the first step towards D-CS production in human cells.