Precise tuning of the glyoxylate cycle in Escherichia coli for efficient tyrosine production from acetate

BACKGROUND: Acetate is one of promising feedstocks owing to its cheap price and great abundance. Considering that tyrosine production is gradually shifting to microbial production method, its production from acetate can be attempted to further improve the economic feasibility of its production. RESULTS: Here, we engineered a previously reported strain, SCK1, for efficient production of tyrosine from acetate. Initially, the acetate uptake and gluconeogenic pathway were amplified to maximize the flux toward tyrosine. As flux distribution between glyoxylate and TCA cycles is critical for efficient precursor supplementation, the activity of the glyoxylate cycle was precisely controlled by expression of isocitrate lyase gene under different-strength promoters. Consequently, the engineered strain with optimal flux distribution produced 0.70 g/L tyrosine with 20% of the theoretical maximum yield which are 1.6-fold and 1.9-fold increased values of the parental strain. CONCLUSIONS: Tyrosine production from acetate requires precise tuning of the glyoxylate cycle and we obtained substantial improvements in production titer and yield by synthetic promoters and 5′ untranslated regions (UTRs). This is the first demonstration of tyrosine production from acetate. Our strategies would be widely applicable to the production of various chemicals from acetate in future. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12934-019-1106-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.