Multi-enzymatic cascade reactions with Escherichia coli -based modules for synthesizing various bioplastic monomers from fatty acid methyl esters

• Published in: Green chemistry : an international journal and green chemistry resource : GC 2022-03, Vol.24 (5), p.2222-2231
• Main Authors: Yoo, Hee-Wang, Jung, Hyunsang, Sarak, Sharad, Kim, Ye Chan, Park, Beom Gi, Kim, Byung-Gee, Patil, Mahesh D., Yun, Hyungdon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alcohols; Amination; Biopolymers; Biosynthesis; Cascade chemical reactions; Diamines; Diols; E coli; Escherichia coli; Esters; Fatty acid methyl esters; Fatty acids; Green chemistry; Hydroxylation; Modules; Molecular chains; Monomers; Substrates
• ISSN: 1463-9262; 1463-9270
• DOI: 10.1039/D1GC04532F

Multi-enzymatic cascade reaction systems were designed to generate biopolymer monomers using Escherichia coli -based cell modules, capable of carrying out one-pot reactions. Three cell-based modules, including a ω-hydroxylation module (Cell-H m ) to convert fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) to ω-hydroxy fatty acids (ω-HFAs), an amination module (Cell-A m ) to convert terminal alcohol groups of the substrate to amine groups, and a reduction module (Cell-R m ) to convert the carboxyl groups of fatty acids to alcohol groups, were constructed. The product-oriented assembly of these cell modules involving multi-enzymatic cascade reactions generated ω-ADAs (up to 46 mM), α,ω-diols (up to 29 mM), ω-amino alcohols (up to 29 mM) and α,ω-diamines (up to 21 mM) from 100 mM corresponding FAME substrates with varying carbon chain length (C8, C10, and C12). Finally 12-ADA and 1,12-diol were purified with isolated yields of 66.5% and 52.5%, respectively. The multi-enzymatic cascade reactions reported herein present an elegant ‘greener’ alternative for the biosynthesis of various biopolymer monomers from renewable saturated fatty acids.