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KMID : 0380020080230060519
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Korean Journal of Biotechnology and Bioengineering
2008 Volume.23 No. 6 p.519 ~ p.524
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Enhanced production of monacolin-K through supplement of monacolin-K precursors into production medium and cloning of SAM synthetase gene (metK)
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Abstract
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Monacolin-K is a strong anti-hypercholesterolemic agent produced by Monascus sp. via polyketide pathway. High-yielding mutants of monacolin-K were developed through rational screening strategies adopted based on understanding of monacolin-K biosynthetic pathway. Through the experiments for investigating various amino acids as putative precursors for the monacolin-K biosynthesis, it was found that production level of monacolin-K was remarkably increased when optimum amount of cysteine was supplemented into the production medium. We suggested that these phenomena might be related to the special roles of SAM (S-adenosyl methionine), a putative methyl group donor in the biosynthetic pathway of monacolin-K, demonstrating close interrelationship between SAM-synthesizing primary metabolism and monacolin-K synthesizing secondary metabolism. Namely, increase in the intracellular amount of SAM derived from the putative precursor, cysteine which was extracellularly supplemented into the production medium might contribute to the significant enhancement in the monacolin-K biosynthetic capability of the highly mutated producers. On the basis of these assumptions derived from the above fermentation results, we decided to construct efficient expression vectors harboring SAM synthetase gene (metK) cloned from A. nidulans, with the hope that increased intracellular level of SAM could lead to further enhancement in the monacolin-K production through overcoming a rate-limiting step associated with monacolin-K biosynthesis. Hence, in order to overcome the plausible rate-limiting step associated with monacolin-K biosynthesis by increasing intracellular level of SAM, we transformed the producer mutants with an efficient expression vector harboring gpdA promoter of the producer microorganism, and metK gene. Notably, from the resulting various transformants, we were able to screen a very high-yielding transformant which showed approximately 3.3 fold higher monacolin-K productivity than the parallel nontransformed mutants in shake flask cultures performed under the identical fermentation conditions.
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KEYWORD
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Monascus ruber, monacolin-K, cysteine, SAM (S-adenosylmethionine), metK
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