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Updated: Nov 28, 2025

Rapid One-step Enzymatic Synthesis and All-aqueous Purification of Trehalose Analogues
Published on: February 17, 2017
Trehalose production by Cupriavidus necator from CO2 and hydrogen gas
Hannes Löwe1, Marleen Beentjes1, Katharina Pflüger-Grau1
1Systems Biotechnology, Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Abstract:
In this work, the hydrogen-oxidizing bacterium Cupriavidus necator H16 was engineered for trehalose production from gaseous substrates. First, it could be shown that C. necator is a natural producer of trehalose when stressed with sodium chloride. Bioinformatic investigations revealed a so far unknown mode of trehalose and glycogen metabolism in this organism. Next, it was found that expression of the sugar efflux transporter A (setA) from Escherichia coli lead to a trehalose leaky phenotype of C. necator. Finally, the strain was characterized under autotrophic conditions using a H2/CO2/O2-mixture and other substrates reaching titers of up to 0.47 g L-1 and yields of around 0.1 g g-1. Taken together, this process represents a new way to produce sugars with high areal efficiency. With further metabolic engineering, an application of this technology for the renewable production of trehalose and other sugars, as well as for the synthesis of 13C-labeled sugars seems promising.
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