A Streamlined One-Step Bioprocess for Isomaltulose Production in Bacillus subtilis Through Multicopy Genomic...

Isomaltulose, a sucrose isomer with a low glycemic index and non-cariogenic properties, is extensively used in the food industry. The industrial production of this functional sugar relies on enzymatic biotransformation using sucrose isomerase (SIase). However, conventional bioprocesses involve expressing and isolating the SIase enzyme, followed by using the purified SIase to convert sucrose into isomaltulose, resulting in a multi-step and high-cost process that hindered the broader applications of isomaltulose. In this study, we reported a streamlined one-step bioprocess that integrates extracellular SIase secretion and direct isomaltulose biosynthesis in the culture medium of an engineered B. subtilis strain. Using CRISPR/Cas9 technology, we engineered B. subtilis to integrate multiple SIase expression cassettes into the genome while concurrently replacing genes within the sacP-sacA-ywdA and sacB-levB-yveA operons, which are crucial for sucrose hydrolysis in B. subtilis. This strategy synergistically increased the genomic copy number of SIase gene while limited sucrose consumption by native pathways, thereby maximizing substrate availability for SIase-mediated catalysis. The resulting engineered strain, containing four copies of the SIase expression cassettes, achieved an extracellular SIase activity of 8.2 U/mL in shake flasks. When cultured in a medium containing 200 g/L sucrose, this strain produced a maximum isomaltulose titer of 162.1 g/L with a yield of 0.81 g/g and a productivity of 13.5 g/L/h. These findings demonstrate an integrated bioprocess that eliminates costly enzyme isolation procedure and reduces fermentation complexity, presenting a commercially feasible strategy for sustainable isomaltulose production.