Enhancing rhamnolipid production through a two-stage fermentation control strategy based on metabolic engineering and nitrate feeding

Nitrate plays a crucial role in the high-efficient fermentation production of rhamnolipids (RLs). However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Firstly, by knocking out the restriction endonuclease PaeKI and utilizatiing the endogenous CRISPR-Cas-mediated single-plasmid recombineering system, a genome editing system for P. aeruginosa KT1115 has been established. Secondly, an engineered strain KT1115ΔpaeKIΔnirS was obtained with a 87% of reduction in nitric oxide (NO) accumulation and a 93% of reduction in RLs production, revealing the crucial role of NO signaling molecule produced from nitrate metabolism in RLs production. Finally, by combining metabolic engineering of the nitrate metabolism pathway with nitrogen feeding, a new two-stage fermentation process was developed. The fermentation production period was reduced from 168 h to 120 h while achieving a high yield of 0.8 g/g, and the average productivity increased by 55%. In all, this study provides a novel insights in the RLs biosynthesis and fermentation control strategy.