Publications

Branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) metabolism fulfills numerous physiological roles and can be harnessed to produce valuable chemicals. However, the lack of eukaryotic biosensors specific for BCAA-derived products has limited the ability to develop high-throughput screens for strain engineering and metabolic studies. Here, we harness the transcriptional regulator Leu3p from Saccharomyces cerevisiae to develop a genetically encoded biosensor for BCAA metabolism. In one configuration, we use the biosensor to monitor yeast production of isobutanol, an alcohol derived from valine degradation. Small modifications allow us to redeploy Leu3p in another biosensor configuration that monitors production of the leucine-derived alcohol, isopentanol. These biosensor configurations are effective at isolating high-producing strains and identifying enzymes with enhanced activity from screens for branched-chain higher alcohol (BCHA) biosynthesis in mitochondria as well as cytosol. Furthermore, this biosensor has the potential to assist in metabolic studies involving BCAA pathways, and offers a blueprint to develop biosensors for other products derived from BCAA metabolism.

Increasingly abundant and low-cost renewable electricity is driving the fast development of electrolysis for energy storage and CO₂ valorization. However, current electrolyzers rely on the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which has been expensive, location limited, high-risk, and generates low value (O₂) recovery. In this perspective review, we analyzed the state-of-the-art in electrolysis processes that use alternative anode reactions to improve the economic viability and scalability of water or CO₂ electrolysis. We quantitatively compared a wide range of inorganic and organic electron donors in the anode that can lower energy costs and/or produce value-added products, and then assessed the use of different biotic and abiotic catalysts and the feasibility of using low-grade water sources as electrolytes. Through this wide-ranging assessment, we developed an example study for large-scale electrolysis in California, USA, provided long-term perspectives on OER substitutes for anode co-valorization, and delivered insight on future research directions.

Metabolic engineering can have a pivotal role in increasing the environmental sustainability of the transportation and chemical manufacturing sectors. The field has already developed engineered microorganisms that are currently being used in industrial-scale processes. However, it is often challenging to achieve the titres, yields and productivities required for commercial viability. The efficiency of microbial chemical production is usually dependent on the physiological traits of the host organism, which may either impose limitations on engineered biosynthetic pathways or, conversely, boost their performance. In this Review, we discuss different aspects of microbial physiology that often create obstacles for metabolic engineering, and present solutions to overcome them. We also describe various instances in which natural or engineered physiological traits in host organisms have been harnessed to benefit engineered metabolic pathways for chemical production.

To maximize a desired product, metabolic engineers typically express enzymes to high, constant levels. Yet, permanent pathway activation can have undesirable consequences including competition with essential pathways and accumulation of toxic intermediates. Faced with similar challenges, natural metabolic systems compartmentalize enzymes into organelles or post-translationally induce activity under certain conditions. Here we report that optogenetic control can be used to extend compartmentalization and dynamic control to engineered metabolisms in yeast. We describe a suite of optogenetic tools to trigger assembly and disassembly of metabolically active enzyme clusters. Using the deoxyviolacein biosynthesis pathway as a model system, we find that light-switchable clustering can enhance product formation six-fold and product specificity 18-fold by decreasing the concentration of intermediate metabolites and reducing flux through competing pathways. Inducible compartmentalization of enzymes into synthetic organelles can thus be used to control engineered metabolic pathways, limit intermediates and favor the formation of desired products.

Each subcellular compartment in yeast offers a unique physiochemical environment and metabolite, enzyme, and cofactor composition. While yeast metabolic engineering has focused on assembling pathways in the cell cytosol, there is growing interest in embracing subcellular compartmentalization. Beyond harnessing distinct organelle properties, physical separation of organelles from the cytosol has the potential to eliminate metabolic crosstalk and enhance compartmentalized pathway efficiency. In this Perspective we review the state of the art in yeast subcellular engineering, highlighting the benefits of targeting biosynthetic pathways to subcellular compartments, including mitochondria, peroxisomes, the ER and/or Golgi, vacuoles, and the cell wall, in different yeast species. We compare the performances of strains developed with subcellular engineering to those of native producers or yeast strains previously engineered with cytosolic pathways. We also identify important challenges that lie ahead, which need to be addressed for organelle engineering to become as mainstream as cytosolic engineering in academia and industry.

Summary Biological solutions hold unique advantages to address challenges in sustainable energy. Living organisms have evolved for billions of years to solve problems in catalysis, material synthesis, carbon fixation, and energy capture and storage, including not only photosynthesis but also older metabolisms that rely on metal oxidation and reduction. These capabilities offer solutions to problems in sustainable energy, including the safe use of nuclear power, the construction and recycling of batteries, the extraction and processing of rare earth elements, and the carbon-neutral or even carbon-negative synthesis of hydrocarbon fuels. Biological self-repair, self-assembly, and self-replication offer the ability to deploy these capabilities on a global scale, and evolution can be harnessed to accelerate engineering. In this review, we discuss the opportunities for applied biology to contribute to the sustainable energy landscape, the challenges faced, and cutting-edge bioengineering that draws inspiration from fundamental research into biophysics, metabolism, catalysis, and systems biology.

Mitochondrial metabolism links energy production to other essential cellular processes such as signaling, cellular differentiation, and apoptosis. In addition to producing adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as an energy source, mitochondria are responsible for the synthesis of a myriad of important metabolites and cofactors such as tetrahydrofolate, α-ketoacids, steroids, aminolevulinic acid, biotin, lipoic acid, acetyl-CoA, iron-sulfur clusters, heme, and ubiquinone. Furthermore, mitochondria and their metabolism have been implicated in aging and several human diseases, including inherited mitochondrial disorders, cardiac dysfunction, heart failure, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, and cancer. Therefore, there is great interest in understanding mitochondrial metabolism and the complex relationship it has with other cellular processes. A large number of studies on mitochondrial metabolism have been conducted in the last 50 years, taking a broad range of approaches. In this review, we summarize and discuss the most commonly used tools that have been used to study different aspects of the metabolism of mitochondria: ranging from dyes that monitor changes in the mitochondrial membrane potential and pharmacological tools to study respiration or ATP synthesis, to more modern tools such as genetically encoded biosensors and trans-omic approaches enabled by recent advances in mass spectrometry, computation, and other technologies. These tools have allowed the large number of studies that have shaped our current understanding of mitochondrial metabolism. WIREs Syst Biol Med 2017, 9:e1373. doi: 10.1002/wsbm.1373For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

A novel approach recruits the largest prokaryotic family of ligand-induced transcriptional regulators to develop a new class of biosensors in yeast based on transcriptional activation, vastly expanding the repertoire of biosensors that could function in eukaryotic hosts.

Efforts to improve the production of a compound of interest in Saccharomyces cerevisiae have mainly involved engineering or overexpression of cytoplasmic enzymes. We show that targeting metabolic pathways to mitochondria can increase production compared with overexpression of the enzymes involved in the same pathways in the cytoplasm. Compartmentalization of the Ehrlich pathway into mitochondria increased isobutanol production by 260%, whereas overexpression of the same pathway in the cytoplasm only improved yields by 10%, compared with a strain overproducing enzymes involved in only the first three steps of the biosynthetic pathway. Subcellular fractionation of engineered strains revealed that targeting the enzymes of the Ehrlich pathway to the mitochondria achieves greater local enzyme concentrations. Other benefits of compartmentalization may include increased availability of intermediates, removing the need to transport intermediates out of the mitochondrion and reducing the loss of intermediates to competing pathways.

Inward-rectifier potassium (K+) channels conduct K+ ions most efficiently in one direction, into the cell. Kir2 channels control the resting membrane voltage in many electrically excitable cells, and heritable mutations cause periodic paralysis and cardiac arrhythmia. We present the crystal structure of Kir2.2 from chicken, which, excluding the unstructured amino and carboxyl termini, is 90% identical to human Kir2.2. Crystals containing rubidium (Rb+), strontium (Sr2+), and europium (Eu3+) reveal binding sites along the ion conduction pathway that are both conductive and inhibitory. The sites correlate with extensive electrophysiological data and provide a structural basis for understanding rectification. The channel's extracellular surface, with large structured turrets and an unusual selectivity filter entryway, might explain the relative insensitivity of eukaryotic inward rectifiers to toxins. These same surface features also suggest a possible approach to the development of inhibitory agents specific to each member of the inward-rectifier K+ channel family.

Sirtuin proteins comprise a unique class of NAD(+)-dependent protein deacetylases. Although several structures of sirtuins have been determined, the mechanism by which NAD(+) cleavage occurs has remained unclear. We report the structures of ternary complexes containing NAD(+) and acetylated peptide bound to the bacterial sirtuin Sir2Tm and to a catalytic mutant (Sir2TM(H116Y)). NAD(+) in these structures binds in a conformation different from that seen in previous structures, exposing the alpha face of the nicotinamide ribose to the carbonyl oxygen of the acetyl lysine substrate. The NAD+ conformation is identical in both structures, suggesting that proper coenzyme orientation is not dependent on contacts with the catalytic histidine. We also present the structure of Sir2TM(H116A) bound to deacteylated peptide and 3'-O-acetyl ADP ribose. Taken together, these structures suggest a mechanism for nicotinamide cleavage in which an invariant phenylalanine plays a central role in promoting formation of the O-alkylamidate reaction intermediate and preventing nicotinamide exchange.

Sirtuins comprise a family of enzymes that catalyze the deacetylation of acetyllysine side chains in a reaction that consumes NAD+. Although several crystal structures of sirtuins bound to non-native acetyl peptides have been determined, relatively little about how sirtuins discriminate among different substrates is understood. We have carried out a systematic structural and thermodynamic analysis of several peptides bound to a single sirtuin, the Sir2 homologue from Thermatoga maritima (Sir2Tm). We report structures of five different forms of Sir2Tm: two forms bound to the p53 C-terminal tail in the acetylated and unacetylated states, two forms bound to putative acetyl peptide substrates derived from the structured domains of histones H3 and H4, and one form bound to polypropylene glycol (PPG), which resembles the apoenzyme. The structures reveal previously unobserved complementary side chain interactions between Sir2Tm and the first residue N-terminal to the acetyllysine (position-1) and the second residue C-terminal to the acetyllysine (position+2). Isothermal titration calorimetry was used to compare binding constants between wild-type and mutant forms of Sir2Tm and between additional acetyl peptide substrates with substitutions at positions-1 and +2. The results are consistent with a model in which peptide positions-1 and + 2 play a significant role in sirtuin substrate binding. This model provides a framework for identifying sirtuin substrates.

Sir2 enzymes form a unique class of NAD+-dependent deacetylases required for diverse biological processes, including transcriptional silencing, regulation of apoptosis, fat mobilization, and lifespan regulation. Sir2 activity is regulated by nicotinamide, a noncompetitive inhibitor that promotes a base-exchange reaction at the expense of deacetylation. To elucidate the mechanism of nicotinamide inhibition, we determined ternary complex structures of Sir2 enzymes containing nicotinamide. The structures show that free nicotinamide binds in a conserved pocket that participates in NAD(+) binding and catalysis. Based on our structures, we engineered a mutant that deacetylates peptides by using nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide (NAAD) as a cosubstrate and is inhibited by nicotinic acid. The characteristics of the altered specificity enzyme establish that Sir2 enzymes contain a single site that participates in catalysis and nicotinamide regulation and provides additional insights into the Sir2 catalytic mechanism.

Sir2 proteins form a family of NAD(+)-dependent protein deacetylases required for diverse biological processes, including transcriptional silencing, suppression of rDNA recombination, control of p53 activity, regulation of acetyl-CoA synthetase, and aging. Although structures of Sir2 enzymes in the presence and absence of peptide substrate or NAD(+) have been determined, the role of the enzyme in the mechanism of cleacetylation and NAD(+) cleavage is still unclear. Here, we present additional structures of Sir2Af2 in several differently complexed states: in a productive complex with NAD(+), in a nonproductive NAD(+) complex with bound ADP-ribose, and in the unliganded state. We observe a new mode of NAD(+) binding that seems to depend on acetyl-lysine binding, in which the nicotinamide ring of NAD(+) is buried in the highly conserved "C" pocket of the enzyme. We propose a detailed structure-based mechanism for cleacetylation and nicotinamide inhibition of Sir2 consistent with mutagenesis and enzymatic studies.

Sir2 proteins are NAD(+)-dependent protein deacetylases that play key roles in transcriptional regulation, DNA repair, and life span regulation. The structure of an archaeal Sir2 enzyme, Sir2-Af2, bound to an acetylated p53 peptide reveals that the substrate binds in a cleft in the enzyme, forming an enzyme-substrate 0 sheet with two flanking strands in Sir2-Af2. The acetyllysine inserts into a conserved hydrophobic tunnel that contains the active site histidine. Comparison with other structures of Sir2 enzymes suggests that the apoenzyme undergoes a conformational change upon substrate binding. Based on the Sir2-Af2 substrate complex structure, mutations were made in the other A. fulgidus sirtuin, Sir2-Af1, that increased its affinity for the p53 peptide.

The yeast Sir2 protein, required for transcriptional silencing, has an NAD(+)-dependent histone deacetylase (HDA) activity. Yeast extracts contain a NAD(+)-dependent HDA activity that is eliminated in a yeast strain from which SIR2 and its four homologs have been deleted. This HDA activity is also displayed by purified yeast Sir2p and homologous Archaeal, eubacterial, and human proteins, and depends completely on NAD(+) in all species tested. The yeast NPT1 gene, encoding an important NAD(+) synthesis enzyme, is required for rDNA and telomeric silencing and contributes to silencing of the HM loci. Null mutants in this gene have significantly reduced intracellular NAD(+) concentrations and have phenotypes similar to sir2 null mutants. Surprisingly, yeast from which all five SIR2 homologs have been deleted have relatively normal bulk histone acetylation levels. The evolutionary conservation of this regulated activity suggests that the Sir2 protein family represents a set of effector proteins in an evolutionarily conserved signal transduction pathway that monitors cellular energy and redox states.