Genome-Wide Quantification of the Effect of Gene Overexpression on Escherichia coli Growth

Recombinant protein production plays an essential role in both biological studies and pharmaceutical production. Escherichia coli is one of the most favorable hosts for this purpose. Although a number of strategies for optimizing protein production have been developed, the effect of gene overexpression on host cell growth has been much less studied. Here, we performed high-throughput tests on the E. coli a complete set of E. coli K-12 ORF archive (ASKA) collection to quantify the effects of overexpressing individual E. coli genes on its growth. The results indicated that overexpressing membrane-associated proteins or proteins with high abundances of branched-chain amino acids tended to impair cell growth, the latter of which could be remedied by amino acid supplementation. Through this study, we expect to provide an index for a fast pre-study estimate of host cell growth in order to choose proper rescuing approaches when working with different proteins.