Construction of a tunable promoter library to optimize gene expression in Methylomonas sp. DH-1, a methanotroph, and its application to cadaverine production

BACKGROUND: As methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide in exacerbating the greenhouse effect, there is an increasing interest in the utilization of methanotrophic bacteria that can convert harmful methane into various value-added compounds. A recently isolated methanotroph, Methylomonas sp. DH-1, is a promising biofactory platform because of its relatively fast growth. However, the lack of genetic engineering tools hampers its wide use in the bioindustry. RESULTS: Through three different approaches, we constructed a tunable promoter library comprising 33 promoters that can be used for the metabolic engineering of Methylomonas sp. DH-1. The library had an expression level of 0.24–410% when compared with the strength of the lac promoter. For practical application of the promoter library, we fine-tuned the expressions of cadA and cadB genes, required for cadaverine synthesis and export, respectively. The strain with P(rpmB)-cadA and P(DnaA)-cadB produced the highest cadaverine titre (18.12 ± 1.06 mg/L) in Methylomonas sp. DH-1, which was up to 2.8-fold higher than that obtained from a non-optimized strain. In addition, cell growth and lysine (a precursor of cadaverine) production assays suggested that gene expression optimization through transcription tuning can afford a balance between the growth and precursor supply. CONCLUSIONS: The tunable promoter library provides standard and tunable components for gene expression, thereby facilitating the use of methanotrophs, specifically Methylomonas sp. DH-1, as a sustainable cell factory. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13068-021-02077-8.