Heterologous expression of Vibrio natriegens transporters enhances the growth of Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis on glutamate

Abstract

Bacterial growth modulation is crucial in microbial synthetic biology. In this study, we found that glutamate is an extremely poor carbon source for Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis. The slow growth on glutamate can be effectively overcome by the heterologous expression of glutamate transporters from Vibrio natriegens. Our results revealed that cross-species substrate transporters could be employed to shift bacterial cellular resource allocation, offering a potential genetic strategy for modulating microbial biomass growth.