Improvement in l-ornithine production from mannitol via transcriptome-guided genetic engineering in Corynebacterium glutamicum

BACKGROUND: l-Ornithine is an important medicinal intermediate that is mainly produced by microbial fermentation using glucose as the substrate. To avoid competition with human food resources, there is an urgent need to explore alternative carbon sources for l-ornithine production. In a previous study, we constructed an engineered strain, Corynebacterium glutamicum MTL13, which produces 54.56 g/L of l-ornithine from mannitol. However, compared with the titers produced using glucose as a substrate, the results are insufficient, and further improvement is required. RESULTS: In this study, comparative transcriptome profiling of MTL01 cultivated with glucose or mannitol was performed to identify novel targets for engineering l-ornithine-producing strains. Guided by the transcriptome profiling results, we modulated the expression of qsuR (encoding a LysR-type regulator QsuR), prpC (encoding 2-methylcitrate synthase PrpC), pdxR (encoding a MocR-type regulator PdxR), acnR (encoding a TetR-type transcriptional regulator AcnR), CGS9114_RS08985 (encoding a hypothetical protein), and CGS9114_RS09730 (encoding a TetR/AcrR family transcriptional regulator), thereby generating the engineered strain MTL25 that can produce l-ornithine at a titer of 93.6 g/L, representing a 71.6% increase as compared with the parent strain MTL13 and the highest l-ornithine titer reported so far for C. glutamicum. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides novel indirect genetic targets for enhancing l-ornithine accumulation on mannitol and lays a solid foundation for the biosynthesis of l-ornithine from marine macroalgae, which is farmed globally as a promising alternative feedstock. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13068-022-02198-8.