Anaerobic adaptive evolution of E. coli

Under various stressed conditions microbial cells change their genomes to adapt to the environment, so called “adaptive evolution”. The recycling of redox cofactors such as NAD+ is essential for the maintenance of redox balance in cells, which is mainly performed by alcohol dehydrogenase (AdhE) in E. coli under anaerobic condition. In the absence of AdhE, highly-reduced cellular status could be alternatively oxidized to generate D-lactate in E. coli, which is accompanied by adaptive mutations. In this project, next generation sequencing showed that D-lactate fermentation could be achieved by additional point mutations in E. coli adhE mutant cells.