The Industrial Organism Corynebacterium glutamicum Requires Mycothiol as Antioxidant to Resist Against Oxidative Stress in Bioreactor Cultivations

Hartmann, Fabian Stefan Franz; Clermont, Lina; Tung, Quach Ngoc; Antelmann, Haike; Seibold, Gerd Michael

doi:10.3390/antiox9100969

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The Industrial Organism Corynebacterium glutamicum Requires Mycothiol as Antioxidant to Resist Against Oxidative Stress in Bioreactor Cultivations

by

Fabian Stefan Franz Hartmann

¹,

Lina Clermont

²,

Quach Ngoc Tung

^3,†,

Haike Antelmann

³

and

Gerd Michael Seibold

^1,2,*

¹

Section for Synthetic Biology, Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

²

Institute of Biochemistry, University of Cologne, 51149 Cologne, Germany

³

Institute of Biology-Microbiology, Freie Universität Berlin, 10115–14199 Berlin, Germany

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

^†

Current address: Institute of Biotechnology, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi 10000, Vietnam.

Antioxidants 2020, 9(10), 969; https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox9100969

Submission received: 11 September 2020 / Revised: 28 September 2020 / Accepted: 29 September 2020 / Published: 9 October 2020

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Enzymatic and Non-Enzymatic Molecules with Antioxidant Function)

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Abstract

In aerobic environments, bacteria are exposed to reactive oxygen species (ROS). To avoid an excess of ROS, microorganisms are equipped with powerful enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants. Corynebacterium glutamicum, a widely used industrial platform organism, uses mycothiol (MSH) as major low molecular weight (LMW) thiol and non-enzymatic antioxidant. In aerobic bioreactor cultivations, C. glutamicum becomes exposed to oxygen concentrations surpassing the air saturation, which are supposed to constitute a challenge for the intracellular MSH redox balance. In this study, the role of MSH was investigated at different oxygen levels (pO₂) in bioreactor cultivations in C. glutamicum. Despite the presence of other highly efficient antioxidant systems, such as catalase, the MSH deficient ΔmshC mutant was impaired in growth in bioreactor experiments performed at pO₂ values of 30%. At a pO₂ level of 20%, this growth defect was abolished, indicating a high susceptibility of the MSH-deficient mutant towards elevated oxygen concentrations. Bioreactor experiments with C. glutamicum expressing the Mrx1-roGFP2 redox biosensor revealed a strong oxidative shift in the MSH redox potential (E_MSH) at pO₂ values above 20%. This indicates that the LMW thiol MSH is an essential antioxidant to maintain the robustness and industrial performance of C. glutamicum during aerobic fermentation processes.

Keywords: Corynebacterium glutamicum; oxidative stress; mycothiol; Mrx1-roGFP2; redox potential

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MDPI and ACS Style

Hartmann, F.S.F.; Clermont, L.; Tung, Q.N.; Antelmann, H.; Seibold, G.M. The Industrial Organism Corynebacterium glutamicum Requires Mycothiol as Antioxidant to Resist Against Oxidative Stress in Bioreactor Cultivations. Antioxidants 2020, 9, 969. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox9100969

AMA Style

Hartmann FSF, Clermont L, Tung QN, Antelmann H, Seibold GM. The Industrial Organism Corynebacterium glutamicum Requires Mycothiol as Antioxidant to Resist Against Oxidative Stress in Bioreactor Cultivations. Antioxidants. 2020; 9(10):969. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox9100969

Chicago/Turabian Style

Hartmann, Fabian Stefan Franz, Lina Clermont, Quach Ngoc Tung, Haike Antelmann, and Gerd Michael Seibold. 2020. "The Industrial Organism Corynebacterium glutamicum Requires Mycothiol as Antioxidant to Resist Against Oxidative Stress in Bioreactor Cultivations" Antioxidants 9, no. 10: 969. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox9100969

APA Style

Hartmann, F. S. F., Clermont, L., Tung, Q. N., Antelmann, H., & Seibold, G. M. (2020). The Industrial Organism Corynebacterium glutamicum Requires Mycothiol as Antioxidant to Resist Against Oxidative Stress in Bioreactor Cultivations. Antioxidants, 9(10), 969. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox9100969

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The Industrial Organism Corynebacterium glutamicum Requires Mycothiol as Antioxidant to Resist Against Oxidative Stress in Bioreactor Cultivations

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