Metabolic engineering of the purine biosynthetic pathway in Corynebacterium glutamicum results in increased intracellular pool sizes of IMP and hypoxanthine

Background: Purine nucleotides exhibit various functions in cellular metabolism. Besides serving as building blocks for nucleic acid synthesis, they participate in signaling pathways and energy metabolism. Further, IMP and GMP represent industrially relevant biotechnological products used as flavor enhancing additives in food industry. Therefore, this work aimed towards the accumulation of IMP applying targeted genetic engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum. Results: Blocking of the degrading reactions towards AMP and GMP lead to a 45-fold increased intracellular IMP pool of 22 mumol gCDW-1. Deletion of the pgi gene encoding glucose 6-phosphate isomerase in combination with the deactivated AMP and GMP generating reactions, however, resulted in significantly decreased IMP pools (13 mumol gCDW-1). Targeted metabolite profiling of the purine biosynthetic pathway further revealed a metabolite shift towards the formation of the corresponding nucleobase hypoxanthine (102 mumol gCDW-1) derived from IMP degradation. Conclusions: The purine biosynthetic pathway is strongly interconnected with various parts of the central metabolism and therefore tightly controlled. However, deleting degrading reactions from IMP to AMP and GMP significantly increased intracellular IMP levels. Due to the complexity of this pathway further degradation from IMP to the corresponding nucleobase drastically increased suggesting additional targets for future strain optimization

Metabolic engineering of the purine biosynthetic pathway in <it>Corynebacterium glutamicum</it> results in increased intracellular pool sizes of IMP and hypoxanthine

Abstract Background Purine nucleotides exhibit various functions in cellular metabolism. Besides serving as building blocks for nucleic acid synthesis, they participate in signaling pathways and energy metabolism. Further, IMP and GMP represent industrially relevant biotechnological products used as flavor enhancing additives in food industry. Therefore, this work aimed towards the accumulation of IMP applying targeted genetic engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum. Results Blocking of the degrading reactions towards AMP and GMP lead to a 45-fold increased intracellular IMP pool of 22 μmol gCDW-1. Deletion of the pgi gene encoding glucose 6-phosphate isomerase in combination with the deactivated AMP and GMP generating reactions, however, resulted in significantly decreased IMP pools (13 μmol gCDW-1). Targeted metabolite profiling of the purine biosynthetic pathway further revealed a metabolite shift towards the formation of the corresponding nucleobase hypoxanthine (102 μmol gCDW-1) derived from IMP degradation. Conclusions The purine biosynthetic pathway is strongly interconnected with various parts of the central metabolism and therefore tightly controlled. However, deleting degrading reactions from IMP to AMP and GMP significantly increased intracellular IMP levels. Due to the complexity of this pathway further degradation from IMP to the corresponding nucleobase drastically increased suggesting additional targets for future strain optimization.</p

Continuous adiabatic industrial benzene nitration with mixed acid at a pilot plant scale

A pilot plant for the continuous adiabatic nitration of benzene was constructed, reproducing the industrial operating conditions, in order to identify the reaction regime prevailing in this industrial process. Important process parameters were tested covering a wide range of operating conditions: reaction temperature (80-135 °C), benzene to nitric acid molar feed ratio (0.96-1.15) and stirring speed (390-1700 rpm). The residence time and the sulphuric acid strength were fixed at 2 min and 68%, respectively. The data from a large number of experiments show a good agreement with the results of a mathematical model of the reactor.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TFJ-4F7S18J-1/1/149c666ae3f7421d65606a679b66a45

Anthrax among heroin users in Europe possibly caused by same Bacillus anthracis strain since 2000

Injection anthrax was described first in 2000 in a heroin-injecting drug user in Norway. New anthrax cases among heroin consumers were detected in the United Kingdom (52 cases) and Germany (3 cases) in 2009-10. In June 2012, a fatal case occurred in Regensburg, Bavaria. As of December 2012, 13 cases had been reported in this new outbreak from Germany, Denmark, France and the United Kingdom. We analysed isolates from 2009-10 and 2012 as well as from the first injection anthrax case in Norway in 2000 by comparative molecular typing using a high resolution 31 marker multilocus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) and a broad single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis. Our results show that all cases may be traced back to the same outbreak strain. They also indicate the probability of a single source contaminating heroin and that the outbreak could have lasted for at least a decade. However, an additional serological pilot study in two German regions conducted in 2011 failed to discover additional anthrax cases among 288 heroin users