Experimental evidence for growth advantage and metabolic shift stimulated by photophosphorylation of proteorhodopsin expressed in Escherichia coli at anaerobic condition

Since solar light energy is the source of all renewable biological energy, the direct usage of light energy by bacterial cell factory has been a very attractive concept, especially using light energy to promote anaerobic fermentation growth and even recycle low-energy carbon source when energy is the limiting factor. Proteorhodopsin(PR), a light-driven proton pump proven to couple with ATP synthesis when expressed heterogeneously, is an interesting and simple option to enable light usage in engineered strains. However, although it was reported to influence fermentation in some cases, heterogeneous proteorhodopsin expression was never shown to support growth advantage or cause metabolic shift by photophosphorylation so far. Hereby, we presented the first experimental evidence that heterogeneously expressed proteorhodopsin can provide growth advantage and cause ATP-dependent metabolism shift of acetate and lactate changes in Escherichia coli at anaerobic condition. Those discoveries suggest further application potential of PR in anaerobic fermentation where energy is a limiting factor.