n-Butylamine production from glucose using a transaminase-mediated synthetic pathway in Escherichia coli

Bioamination methods using microorganisms have attracted much attention because of the increasing demand for environmentally friendly bioprocesses. n-Butylamine production from glucose in Escherichia coli was demonstrated in this study, which has never been reported because of the absence of n-butylamine-producing pathway in nature. We focused on a transaminase-mediated cascade for bioamination from an alcohol or aldehyde. The cascade can convert an alcohol or an aldehyde to the corresponding amine with l-alanine as an amine donor. Here, n-butyraldehyde, which is a metabolic intermediate in the n-butanol producing pathway, is a potential intermediate for producing n-butylamine using this cascade. Hence, the n-butanol-producing pathway and the transaminase-mediated cascade were combined into a synthetic metabolic pathway for producing n-butylamine from glucose. Firstly, we demonstrated the conversion of n-butanol to n-butylamine using a three enzyme-mediated cascade. n-Butanol was successfully converted to n-butylamine in 92% yield in the presence of l-alanine and ammonium chloride. Then, the n-butanol-producing pathway and transaminase-mediated cascade were introduced into E. coli. Using this system, n-butylamine was successfully produced from glucose as a carbon source at a concentration of 53.2 mg L^-1 after 96 h cultivation using a ppc (phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase)-deficient strain. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of the direct production of n-butylamine from glucose, and may provide a starting point for the development of microbial methods to produce other bioamines.