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Extracellular recombinant protein production from Escherichia coli

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Abstract

Escherichia coli is the most commonly used host for recombinant protein production and metabolic engineering. Extracellular production of enzymes and proteins is advantageous as it could greatly reduce the complexity of a bioprocess and improve product quality. Extracellular production of proteins is necessary for metabolic engineering applications in which substrates are polymers such as lignocelluloses or xenobiotics since adequate uptake of these substrates is often an issue. The dogma that E. coli secretes no protein has been challenged by the recognition of both its natural ability to secrete protein in common laboratory strains and increased ability to secrete proteins in engineered cells. The very existence of this review dedicated to extracellular production is a testimony for outstanding achievements made collectively by the community in this regard. Four strategies have emerged to engineer E. coli cells to secrete recombinant proteins. In some cases, impressive secretion levels, several grams per liter, were reached. This secretion level is on par with other eukaryotic expression systems. Amid the optimism, it is important to recognize that significant challenges remain, especially when considering the success cannot be predicted a priori and involves much trials and errors. This review provides an overview of recent developments in engineering E. coli for extracellular production of recombinant proteins and an analysis of pros and cons of each strategy.

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Acknowledgements

The research on protein transport in Chen Laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology was supported by NSF BES-0455194 and Georgia Research Alliance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Key Laboratory of Industrial Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, Jiangnan University, 214122, Wuxi, China

    Ye Ni

  2. School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University, 214122, Wuxi, China

    Ye Ni

  3. School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0100, USA

    Rachel Chen

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  1. Ye Ni
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  2. Rachel Chen
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Correspondence to Rachel Chen.

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Ni, Y., Chen, R. Extracellular recombinant protein production from Escherichia coli . Biotechnol Lett 31, 1661–1670 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-009-0077-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-009-0077-3

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