Construction of engineered strains to improve the itaconic acid (ITA) yield. (A) Overview of Escherichia coli MG1655 Δ1-SAS-3. The gene marked with a blue color represents gene knock-out in the genome of Δ1-SAS-3. CSl (CAD-SH3lig), GPS (GA-PDZ-SH3), and APl (ACN-PDZlig) represent the over-expression cascade reaction for ITA production. (B) Improvement in the ITA yield in engineered strain via promotor optimization. PJ23100 for the expression of the CSl, GPS, and APl was replaced by Ptac, Ptet, and Prmd, respectively. (C) Overview of E. coli MG1655 Δ4-Prmd-SAS-3. The genes marked with blue and red represent the genes knocked out in the genome of Δ4-Prmd-SAS-3. (D) Relative ITA yield of each engineered strain. Error bars show the standard deviation from three independent experiments.