Summary 3, 4‐Dihydroxyphenyl‐ l ‐alanine ( l ‐DOPA) is a compound of high medical value and is considered effective as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease. Currently, bioproduction of l ‐DOPA is mainly carried out by whole‐cell catalysis mediated by recombinant Escherichia coli carrying heterogeneous tyrosine phenol lyase. Vibrio natriegens is increasingly attracting attention owing to its superiority, including extremely rapid growth and high soluble protein expression capacity. In this study, we attempt to develop an efficient whole‐cell catalyst for l ‐DOPA production using V. natriegens as the chassis. The maximum soluble protein expression by V. natriegens was accomplished in 4 h at 37°C, which was equivalent to that achieved by E. coli in 16 h at 16°C. Furthermore, the maximum productivity reached over 10.0 g l −1 h −1 in the early stage of biocatalysis, nearly two‐fold higher than previously reported. Approximately 54.0 g l −1 l ‐DOPA was obtained with a catechol conversion rate greater than 95%. In conclusion, V. natriegens displays advantages, including rapid protein expression and catalytic rate in the catalysis process for l ‐DOPA production. These findings strongly suggest that V. natriegens has remarkable potential as a whole‐cell catalysis chassis for the production of valuable chemicals.

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Plastic pollution caused by non-biodegradable plastics is one of the most widely discussed and notable challenges of the 21st century. Developing biodegradable plastics, such as polylactic acid (PLA), is broadly...

Rationally controlling cellular metabolism is of great importance but challenging owing to its highly complex and chaotic nature. Natural existing sensory proteins like histidine kinases (HKs) are understood as “sensitive nodes” of biological networks that can trigger disruptive metabolic reprogramming (MRP) upon perceiving environmental fluctuation. Here, the “sensitive node” genes were adopted to devise a global MRP platform consisting of a CRISPR interference-mediated dual-gene combinational knockdown toolbox and survivorship-based metabolic interaction decoding algorithm. The platform allows users to decode the interfering effects of n × n gene pairs while only requiring the synthesis of n pairs of primers. A total of 35 HK genes and 24 glycine metabolic genes were selected as the targets to determine the effectiveness of our platform in a Vibrio sp. FA2. The platform was applied to decode the interfering impact of HKs on antibiotic resistance in strain FA2. A pattern of combined knockdown of HK genes ( sasA_8 and 04288 ) was demonstrated to be capable of reducing antibiotic resistance of Vibrio by 108-fold. Patterns of combined knockdown of glycine pathway genes (e.g., gcvT and ltaE ) and several HK genes (e.g., cpxA and btsS ) were also revealed to increase glycine production. Our platform may enable an efficient and rational approach for global MRP based on the elucidation of high-order gene interactions. A web-based 1-stop service ( https://smrp.sjtu.edu.cn ) is also provided to simplify the implementation of this smart strategy in a broad range of cells.

Correction for ‘Direct carbon capture for the production of high-performance biodegradable plastics by cyanobacterial cell factories’ by Chunlin Tan et al., Green Chem., 2022, https://doi.org/10.1039/d1gc04188f.