The De Novo Synthesis of 2-Phenylethanol from Glucose by the Synthetic Microbial Consortium Composed of Engineered Escherichia coli and Meyerozyma guilliermondii .

Synthetic microbial consortia show promising applications for fine chemical production, especially with long metabolic pathways. In this study, a synthetic microbial consortium consisting of Escherichia coli YLC20 and Meyerozyma guilliermondii MG57 was successfully constructed, which could achieve efficient de novo 2-phenylethanol (2-PE) production from glucose. A tyrosine-deficient E. coli YLC20 overexpressing genes of aroF and pheA was first constructed, which could accumulate 29.5 g/L of l-phenylalanine (l-Phe) within 96 h from glucose accompanied by the coproduction of acetate and α-ketoglutarate (α-KG). Furthermore, the engineered M. guilliermondii MG57 was constructed through the stepwise metabolic engineering strategy, which could facilitate the 2-PE synthesis from l-Phe. Moreover, the cosubstrate and material intervention strategies were applied to improve the stability of the microbial consortium and 2-PE production. Finally, the synthetic microbial consortium could de novo synthesize 3.77 g/L of 2-PE from 80 g/L of glucose, providing a reference for the de novo synthesis of fine chemicals with long metabolic pathways.