Genetic regulation for the biosynthesis of glutamate family in Corynebacterium glutamicum

Corynebacterium glutamicum에서의 glutamate계 아미노산 생합성의 유전적 조절

The regulation of three ammonia assimilatory enzymes, GDH (glutamate dehydrogenase), GS (glutamine synthetase) and GOGAT (glutamate synthase), has been examined in C. glutamicum. Three kinds of arginine auxotrophs blocked in each step of arginine biosynthetic pathway from glutamate were selected as arg 5, arg 6, arg 8. Histidine and tryptophan auxotrophs were also selected because histidine and tryptophan repressed GS biosynthesis in E. coli. These strains were cultured on the media containing nitrogen-excess and limited conditions, to compare the specific activities of ${\alpha}$-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase(${\alpha}-KGDH$), GDH, GS, GOGAT from the cell-free extracts. These results showed that enzyme levels of ${\alpha}-KGDH$ and GDH from 3 kinds of arginine auxotrophs, histidine and tryptophan auxotrophs in nitrogen-excess condition and those of GS and GOGAT in nitrogen limited condition were increased compared with opposite condition. The tryptophan and histidine auxotrophs showed higher level of glutamate and glutamine than parental strains and other mutants. it is assumed that the higher levels of ${\alpha-KGDH}$ and GDH from mutants in nitrogen-excess condition promoted the accumulation of glutamate and glutamine in fermentation broth. The inhibition of GS activities by ADP suggested that GS is regulated by energy charge in C. glutamicum. The results with histidine, tryptophan, glycine, alanine, serine and GMP implied that a system of feedback inhibition were effective. The GDH, GS and GOGAT biosynthesis in culture broth was markedly repressed by the nature and kinds of available nitrogen sources such as tryptophan, proline, glycine, alanine, serine and tyrosine.