A CRISPR/Anti-CRISPR Genome Editing Approach Underlines the Synergy of Butanol Dehydrogenases in Clostridium acetobutylicum DSM 792

ABSTRACT Although Clostridium acetobutylicum is the model organism for the study of acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation, its characterization has long been impeded by the lack of efficient genome editing tools. In particular, the contribution of alcohol dehydrogenases to solventogenesis in this bacterium has mostly been studied with the generation of single-gene deletion strains. In this study, the three butanol dehydrogenase-encoding genes located on the chromosome of the DSM 792 reference strain were deleted iteratively by using a recently developed CRISPR-Cas9 tool improved by using an anti-CRISPR protein-encoding gene, acrIIA4. Although the literature has previously shown that inactivation of either bdhA, bdhB, or bdhC had only moderate effects on the strain, this study shows that clean deletion of both bdhA and bdhB strongly impaired solvent production and that a triple mutant ΔbdhA ΔbdhB ΔbdhC was even more affected. Complementation experiments confirmed the key role of these enzymes and the capacity of each bdh copy to fully restore efficient ABE fermentation in the triple deletion strain. IMPORTANCE An efficient CRISPR-Cas9 editing tool based on a previous two-plasmid system was developed for Clostridium acetobutylicum and used to investigate the contribution of chromosomal butanol dehydrogenase genes during solventogenesis. Thanks to the control of cas9 expression by inducible promoters and of Cas9-guide RNA (gRNA) complex activity by an anti-CRISPR protein, this genetic tool allows relatively fast, precise, markerless, and iterative modifications in the genome of this bacterium and potentially of other bacterial species. As an example, scarless mutants in which up to three genes coding for alcohol dehydrogenases are inactivated were then constructed and characterized through fermentation assays. The results obtained show that in C. acetobutylicum, other enzymes than the well-known AdhE1 are crucial for the synthesis of alcohol and, more globally, to perform efficient solventogenesis.

Alcohol Selectivity in a Synthetic Thermophilicn-Butanol Pathway Is Driven by Biocatalytic and Thermostability Characteristics of Constituent Enzymes

ABSTRACTn-Butanol is generated as a natural product of metabolism by several microorganisms, but almost all grow at mesophilic temperatures. A synthetic pathway forn-butanol production from acetyl coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) that functioned at 70°C was assembledin vitrofrom enzymes recruited from thermophilic bacteria to inform efforts for engineering butanol production into thermophilic hosts. Recombinant versions of eight thermophilic enzymes (β-ketothiolase [Thl], 3-hydroxybutyryl-CoA dehydrogenase [Hbd], and 3-hydroxybutyryl-CoA dehydratase [Crt] fromCaldanaerobacter subterraneussubsp.tengcongensis;trans-2-enoyl-CoA reductase [Ter] fromSpirochaeta thermophila; bifunctional acetaldehyde dehydrogenase/alcohol dehydrogenase [AdhE] fromClostridium thermocellum; and AdhE, aldehyde dehydrogenase [Bad], and butanol dehydrogenase [Bdh] fromThermoanaerobactersp. strain X514) were utilized to examine three possible pathways forn-butanol. These pathways differed in the two steps required to convert butyryl-CoA ton-butanol: Thl-Hbd-Crt-Ter-AdhE (C. thermocellum), Thl-Hbd-Crt-Ter-AdhE (ThermoanaerobacterX514), and Thl-Hbd-Crt-Ter-Bad-Bdh.n-Butanol was produced at 70°C, but with different amounts of ethanol as a coproduct, because of the broad substrate specificities of AdhE, Bad, and Bdh. A reaction kinetics model, validated via comparison toin vitroexperiments, was used to determine relative enzyme ratios needed to maximizen-butanol production. By using large relative amounts of Thl and Hbd and small amounts of Bad and Bdh, >70% conversion ton-butanol was observedin vitro, but with a 60% decrease in the predicted pathway flux. With more-selective hypothetical versions of Bad and Bdh, >70% conversion ton-butanol is predicted, with a 19% increase in pathway flux. Thus, more-selective thermophilic versions of Bad, Bdh, and AdhE are needed to fully exploit biocatalyticn-butanol production at elevated temperatures.

Characterization and Development of Two Reporter Gene Systems for Clostridium acetobutylicum

ABSTRACT The use of lacZ from Thermoanaerobacterium thermosulfurigenes (encoding β-galactosidase) and lucB from Photinus pyralis (encoding luciferase) as reporter genes in Clostridium acetobutylicum was analyzed with promoters of genes required for solventogenesis and acidogenesis. Both systems proved to be well suited and allowed the detection of differences in promoter strength at least up to 100-fold. The luciferase assay could be performed much faster and comes close to online measurement. Resequencing of lacZ revealed a sequence error in the original database entry, which resulted in β-galactosidase with an additional 31 amino acids. Cutting off part of the gene encoding this C terminus resulted in decreased enzyme activity. The lacZ reporter data showed that bdhA (encoding butanol dehydrogenase A) is expressed during the early growth phase, followed by sol (encoding butyraldehyde/butanol dehydrogenase E and coenzyme A transferase) and bdhB (encoding butanol dehydrogenase B) expression. adc (encoding acetoacetate decarboxylase) was also induced early. There is about a 100-fold difference in expression between adc and bdhB (higher) and bdhA and the sol operon (lower). The lucB reporter activity could be increased 10-fold by the addition of ATP to the assay. Washing of the cells proved to be important in order to prevent a red shift of bioluminescence in an acidic environment (for reliable data). lucB reporter measurements confirmed the expression pattern of the sol and ptb-buk (encoding phosphotransbutyrylase and butyrate kinase) operons as determined by the lacZ reporter and showed that the expression level from the ptb promoter is 59-fold higher than that from the sol operon promoter.

Control of Butanol Formation in Clostridium acetobutylicum by Transcriptional Activation

ABSTRACT The sol operon of Clostridium acetobutylicum is the essential transcription unit for formation of the solvents butanol and acetone. The recent proposal that transcriptional regulation of this operon is controlled by the repressor Orf5/SolR (R. V. Nair, E. M. Green, D. E. Watson, G. N. Bennett, and E. T. Papoutsakis, J. Bacteriol. 181:319-330, 1999) was found to be incorrect. Instead, regulation depends on activation, most probably by the multivalent transcription factor Spo0A. The operon is transcribed from a single promoter. A second signal identified in primer extension studies results from mRNA processing and can be observed only in the natural host, not in a heterologous host. The first structural gene in the operon (adhE, encoding a bifunctional butyraldehyde/butanol dehydrogenase) is translated into two different proteins, the mature AdhE enzyme and the separate butanol dehydrogenase domain. The promoter of the sol operon is preceded by three imperfect repeats and a putative Spo0A-binding motif, which partially overlaps with repeat 3 (R3). Reporter gene analysis performed with the lacZ gene of Thermoanaerobacterium thermosulfurigenes and targeted mutations of the regulatory region revealed that the putative Spo0A-binding motif, R3, and R1 are essential for control. The data obtained also indicate that an additional activator protein is involved.

Molecular Characterization and Transcriptional Analysis of adhE2, the Gene Encoding the NADH-Dependent Aldehyde/Alcohol Dehydrogenase Responsible for Butanol Production in Alcohologenic Cultures of Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824

ABSTRACT The adhE2 gene of Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824, coding for an aldehyde/alcohol dehydrogenase (AADH), was characterized from molecular and biochemical points of view. The 2,577-bp adhE2 codes for a 94.4-kDa protein. adhE2 is expressed, as a monocistronic operon, in alcohologenic cultures and not in solventogenic cultures. Primer extension analysis identified two transcriptional start sites 160 and 215 bp upstream of the adhE2 start codon. The expression of adhE2 from a plasmid in the DG1 mutant of C. acetobutylicum, a mutant cured of the pSOL1 megaplasmid, restored butanol production and provided elevated activities of NADH-dependent butyraldehyde and butanol dehydrogenases. The recombinant AdhE2 protein expressed in E. coli as a Strep-tag fusion protein and purified to homogeneity also demonstrated NADH-dependent butyraldehyde and butanol dehydrogenase activities. This is the second AADH identified in C. acetobutylicum ATCC 824, and to our knowledge this is the first example of a bacterium with two AADHs. It is noteworthy that the two corresponding genes, adhE and adhE2, are carried by the pSOL1 megaplasmid of C. acetobutylicum ATCC 824.