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. 1986 Mar;165(3):704–709. doi: 10.1128/jb.165.3.704-709.1986

Construction of an improved D-arabinose pathway in Escherichia coli K-12.

J M Bartkus, R P Mortlock
PMCID: PMC214486  PMID: 3512519

Abstract

A ribitol catabolic pathway was transduced into Escherichia coli K-12 in an effort to determine whether the ribitol pathway would confer an advantage to D-arabinose-positive mutants growing on D-arabinose as the sole carbon source. Competition studies in chemostats showed that ribitol-positive strains, with a selection coefficient of 9%/h, have a significant competitive advantage over ribitol-negative strains. Ribitol-positive strains grown in batch culture also exhibited a shorter lag period than did ribitol-negative strains when transferred from glucose to D-arabinose. Repeated transfer of a ribitol-positive strain of E. coli K-12 on D-arabinose yielded a strain with further improved growth on D-arabinose. This "evolved" strain was found to constitutively synthesize L-fucose permease, isomerase, and kinase but had lost the ability to grow on L-fucose, apparently owing to the loss of a functional aldolase. This constitutive mutation is not linked to the fucose gene cluster and may be similar to an unlinked constitutive mutation described by Chen et al. (J. Bacteriol. 159:725-729, 1984).

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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