Identification and Analysis of the Putative Pentose Sugar Efflux Transporters in Escherichia coli

Escherichia coli possesses a number of proteins that transport sugars out of the cell. We identified 31 candidate sugar efflux transporters based on their similarity to known sugar efflux transporters. We then tested whether these transporters affect arabinose and xylose metabolism. We identified 13 transporters - setC, cmr, ynfM, mdtD, yfcJ, yhhS, emrD, ydhC, ydeA, ybdA, ydeE, mhpT, and kgtP - that appeared to increase or decrease intracellular arabinose concentrations when respectively deleted or over-expressed. None of the candidate transporters affected xylose concentrations. These results indicate that E. coli possesses multiple arabinose efflux transporters. They also provide a novel target for future metabolic engineering.