Acetate is an attractive renewable two-carbon substrate for microbial biotechnology, but its toxicity limits growth and carbon-use efficiency at process-relevant concentrations. Here, we used adaptive laboratory evolution to improve acetate tolerance in a genome-reduced strain of Pseudomonas putida and combined whole-genome sequencing, reverse engineering, transcriptomics, proteomics, and 13C-acetate fluxomics to resolve the underlying adaptation mechanisms. Evolution under increasing acetate concentrations selected recurrent mutations in gacA and fabB, which encode a global response regulator and a fatty acid biosynthesis enzyme, respectively. Reverse engineering of these mutations recovered most of the evolved phenotype, including shorter lag phase and substantially higher biomass yield from acetate. Multi-omic analyses showed repression of type VI secretion systems, carbohydrate storage functions, fatty acid metabolism, and oxidative stress-associated proteins, indicating resource reallocation away from costly stress and non-essential programs. Fluxomics further revealed reduced EDEMP cycling and increased glyoxylate shunt flux, consistent with improved acetate-carbon retention in biomass. These results establish acetate tolerance in P. putida as a resource-efficiency phenotype and identify gacA and fabB as actionable targets for acetate-based bioproduction.
N. Gurdo, A. Srinivasan, Tommaso Tagliani et al.· bioRxiv· 0 citations
Methanol is a reduced, soluble one-carbon (C1) feedstock for sustainable bioproduction, but converting this potential into robust microbial growth remains difficult. Several synthetic C1 assimilation routes depend on autocatalytic cycles, whose operation requires coordinated control of redox balance, toxic intermediates, substrate regeneration, and host regulation. Here, we implemented the serine-threonine cycle (STC) in the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida and used growth-coupled selection with adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) to transition from mixotrophic C1 incorporation to strict methylotrophy. The evolved strain grew with methanol as the sole carbon and energy source under atmospheric CO2 with a doubling time of ca. 40 h. Whole-genome sequencing, reverse genetics, biosensors, isotope labelling, and comparative RNA sequencing showed that evolution repeatedly targeted native pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ)-dependent methanol oxidation, membrane-bound transhydrogenase activity, glycine regeneration, STC enzyme balance, and global regulatory nodes. Additional ALE under glycine-methanol co-feeding increased growth rates and exposed further targets for improving cycle flux. These results establish P. putida as a chassis for strict synthetic methylotrophy and define actionable engineering routes toward C1 biomanufacturing. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Òscar Puiggené, Martina Fricano, Riccardo Rossi et al.· bioRxiv· 0 citations
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