Discovery and functional analysis of a salicylic acid hydroxylase from Aspergillus niger.

In this study, we used transcriptome data of A. niger grown on salicylic acid to identify genes (shyA and crcA) involved in salicylic acid metabolism. Heterologous production in Escherichia coli followed by biochemical characterization confirmed the function of ShyA and CrcA. The combination of ShyA and CrcA demonstrated that cis,cis-muconic acid can be produced from salicylic acid. In addition, the in vivo roles of shyA, dhbA and crcA were studied by creating A. niger deletion mutants which revealed the role of these genes in the fungal metabolism of salicylic acid.Importance Nonrenewable petroleum sources are depleting and therefore alternative sources are needed. Plant biomass is one of the most abundant renewable sources on earth and is efficiently degraded by fungi. In order to utilize plant biomass efficiently, knowledge about the fungal metabolic pathways and the genes and enzymes involved is essential to create efficient strategies for producing valuable compounds such as cis,cis-muconic acid. cis,cis-muconic acid is an important platform chemical that is used to synthesize nylon, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyurethane, resins and lubricants. Currently, cis,cis-muconic acid is mainly produced through chemical synthesis from petroleum based chemicals. Here, we show that two enzymes from fungi can be used to produce cis,cis-muconic acid from salicylic acid and contributes 40 in creating alternative methods for the production of platform chemicals. PMID: ...
Source: Applied and Environmental Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: Appl Environ Microbiol Source Type: research