From soil to biomanufacturing: Systems-driven metabolic pathway rewiring in non-model bacteria for gram-scale...

Microbial natural products (NPs) are a pivotal reservoir for drugs used in human health and agriculture. Andrimid, a polyketide-non-ribosomal peptide hybrid antibiotic inhibiting bacterial acetyl-CoA carboxylase, shows enormous potential in antibiotic drug development to mitigate antimicrobial resistance. However, industrial-scale manufacturing and downstream development of andrimid are largely prohibited due to its milligram level production in microorganisms. Herein, using an integrative multi-omics approach, we improved the yield of andrimid remarkably from milligram to gram level in a non-model environmental soil bacterium, Erwinia persicina BST187, isolated from the rhizosphere of tomato. Systematic reprogramming of the pathways for carbon source uptake, competing metabolites biosynthesis, supply of essential building blocks including phenylalanine, glycine, valine and malonyl-CoA and cofactor biosynthesis using CRIPSR/Cas9 based gene editing tools, coupled with fine-tuning the transcription of the biosynthetic genes of andrimid, resulted in the generation of the optimal producer, G17. Combined with fermentation optimization, andrimid was produced to a highest level of 1099.42 mg/L with a productivity of 15.3 mg/L/h using a 5 L bioreactor, representing a 628-fold increase compared to the parental strain. This study showcases the genome wide engineering of non-model bacteria and generates a plasmid- and inducer-free E. persicina strain for high-level andrimid production, providing a blueprint for systems-driven metabolic engineering of complex bioactive NPs for biomanufacturing.