Transport engineering for improving the production and secretion of valuable alkaloids in Escherichia coli

Microorganisms can be metabolically engineered to produce specialized plant metabolites. However, these methods are limited by low productivity and intracellular accumulation of We sought use transport engineering for producing reticuline, an important intermediate in the alkaloid biosynthetic pathway. In this study, we established a reticuline-producing Escherichia coli strain into which multidrug toxic compound extrusion transporter Arabidopsis AtDTX1 was introduced. selected due its suitable expression E. reticuline-transport activity. Expression enhanced reticuline production 11-fold, produced secreted medium. also conferred high plasmid stability resulted upregulation or downregulation several genes associated with biological processes, including metabolic pathways biosynthesis, leading secretion levels reticuline. The successful employment suggests that proposed approach may improve biosynthesis metabolites via engineering.