Carotenoid production in Bacillus subtilis achieved by metabolic engineering.

Yoshida, Kazuyuki; Ueda, Shunsaku; Maeda, Isamu

The carotenoid synthetic genes, crtM and crtN, derived from Staphylococcus aureus, were introduced into B. subtilis, resulting in yellow pigmentation. Absorption maxima of pigments and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry demonstrated that the pigmented strain accumulated two C30 carotenoids, 4,4′-diapolycopene and 4,4′-diaponeurosporene. A survival test using H2O2 revealed that the pigmented strain was more resistant to oxidative stress than the strain harboring an empty-vector. These findings indicate that B. subtilis can produce carotenoids, and the strain accumulating the carotenoids, CarotenoBacillus, will become a basal host for production of C30 carotenoids and evaluation of their antioxidative effects.

CAROTENOIDS; GENES; STAPHYLOCOCCUS aureus infections; MASS spectrometry; PIGMENTS; OXIDATIVE stress

Biotechnology Letters, 2009, Vol 31, Issue 11, p1789

0141-5492

Academic Journal

10.1007/s10529-009-0082-6