Bench-top fermentative production of plant benzylisoquinoline alkaloids using a bacterial platform

The plant secondary metabolites benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs) have diverse pharmaceutical activities, and some are used medicinally (e.g., morphine, codeine, berberine). Recently, we constructed a platform to produce BIAs using bioengineered Escherichia coli, which could be useful for bulk production. The E. coli strain used in this system produces the important intermediate (S)-reticuline from glucose or glycerol. Although the amount produced (40 mg/L) exceeded the amount that can be purified from plants, the conversion efficiency from glycerol was only 0.15%; thus, there was much room for improvement. Our production system was developed in a jar fermenter but it is difficult to work with multiple samples using this system. In contrast, many samples can be cultured in parallel using shake flask cultures, allowing optimization of production conditions. Here, we describe bench-top production of (S)-reticuline and optimization of culture conditions using shake flask cultures. The production of (S)-reticuline reached 33.9 mg/L.