Overcoming NADPH product inhibition improves D-sorbitol conversion to L-sorbose

Gluconobacter oxydans sorbitol dehydrogenase (GoSLDH) exhibits a higher catalytic efficiency than other l-sorbose producing enzymes. During the reaction catalysed by GoSLDH, NADP(+) is reduced to NADPH and d-sorbitol is oxidized to l-sorbose. However, GoSLDH activity is inhibited by the NADPH (K(i) = 100 μM) formed during the enzymatic reaction. Therefore, Escherichia coli(gosldh-lrenox) producing both GoSLDH for d-sorbitol oxidation and LreNOX (NAD(P)H oxidase from Lactobacillus reuteri) for NADP(+) regeneration was generated and used for l-sorbose production. Whole cell biocatalysts with the LreNOX cofactor recycling system showed a high conversion rate (92%) of d-sorbitol to l-sorbose in the presence of low concentration of NADP(+) (0.5 mM). By alleviating NADPH accumulation during the catalytic reactions, E. coli(gosldh-lrenox) exhibited 23-fold higher conversion rate of d-sorbitol than E. coli(gosldh). l-Sorbose production by E. coli(gosldh-lrenox) reached 4.1 g/L after 40 min, which was 20.5-fold higher than that of E. coli(gosldh). We also constructed G. oxydans(gosldh) and G. oxydans(gosldh-lrenox) strains, and they exhibited 1.2- and 2.9-fold higher conversion rates than the wild-type G. oxydans KCTC 1091. The results indicate that overcoming NADPH product inhibition using LreNOX improves chemical production in NADP(+)-dependent enzymatic reactions.