Metabolic engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum for improved l-arginine synthesis by enhancing NADPH supply

Abstract Corynebacterium glutamicum SNK 118 was metabolically engineered with improved l-arginine titer. Considering the crucial role of NADPH level in l-arginine production, pntAB (membrane-bound transhydrogenase) and ppnK (NAD+ kinase) were co-expressed to increase the intracellular NADPH pool. Expression of pntAB exhibited significant effects on NADPH supply and l-arginine synthesis. Furthermore, argR and farR, encoding arginine repressor ArgR and transcriptional regulator FarR, respectively, were removed from the genome of C. glutamicum. The competitive branch pathway gene ldh was also deleted. Eventually, an engineered C. glutamicum JML07 was obtained for l-arginine production. Fed-batch fermentation in 5-L bioreactor employing strain JML07 allowed production of 67.01 g L−1 l-arginine with productivity of 0.89 g L−1 h−1 and yield of 0.35 g g−1 glucose. This study provides a productive l-arginine fermentation strain and an effective cofactor manipulating strategy for promoting the biosynthesis of NADPH-dependent metabolites.