Fig. 3.

Formation of 3HP is observed in real-time. (A) The 3HP is produced from glucose by converting malonyl-CoA into malonate semialdehyde and then on to 3HP. Malonyl-CoA reductase (mcr) performs both of these reactions, but competes with fatty acid biosynthesis for malonyl-CoA. (B) The acuR-based 3HP biosensor reports the progress of 3HP production in real-time. The addition of 50 mM glucose (purple line) results in a small increase in fluorescence over background (gray line). Addition of IPTG increases the production of mcr and the activation of the biosensor (blue line). Providing glucose, IPTG, and cerulenin together results in the most rapid biosensor activation (green line). (C) Fluorescence of the acuR-based biosensor after 12 h reveals an approximately fivefold increase in fluorescence in the presence of glucose, IPTG, and cerulenin compared with 3HP production with glucose alone. In the absence of mcr, IPTG and cerulenin have no effect on biosensor activation (gray bars). Error bars and confidence bands represent the 95% confidence interval (n = 3).