E. coli ATCC 8739 transcriptomics under culture medium optimization and adaptive laboratory evolution for glycerol consumption

Biotechnology suggests that microorganisms can be used as chemical factories that transform renewable feedstock into value-added chemicals. Conversion of glycerol, using direct transformation or fermentation, into valuable products such as polymers, surfactants, solvents, and chemical intermediates has attained growing interest in recent years due to the dramatic growth of the biodiesel industry. However, the use of cell factories could be limited by low growth and uptake rates under certain environmental conditions, thus understanding microbial nutritional requirements is a critical point to use them as cell factories. Here, we compared E. coli ATCC 8739 transcriptomic responses to glycerol under aerobic conditions in an optimized culture medium (Condition 3) and one evolved strain in glycerol using as a reference a glycerol-based medium (Condition 11). Our analyses revealed 478 and 431 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with log2 fold change (FC) > |2| and p Adjusted value < 0.05, for the bacteria growing in the optimized culture medium and the evolved strain, respectively. Among the DEGs, glp operon was found to be up-regulated as a response to glycerol uptake. Interestingly, between them, it was found genes that requires the use of phosphorous to ovoid the toxicity during glycerol consumption. Previously, we identified using a computational approach that phosphorous and nitrogen are essential compound that support high glycerol consumption in E. coli. Here, we compared E. coli transcriptomic responses to glycerol as carbon source under aerobic conditions for an optimized culture medium and adaptive laboratory evolution. 3 biological replicates were carried out for each condition, respectively.