Isoprene Production By Coupling Methylerythritol Phosphate and Mevalonate Pathway in Escherichia coli

Isoprene, a key building block of synthetic rubber, is currently produced entirely from petrochemical sources. In this work, we observed 3‒20-fold higher yield of isoprene production by coupling methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) and the mevalonate (MVA) pathway than individually overexpress single pathway in E. coli. Fed-batch cultivation of the engineered strain overexpressing the dual pathway resulted in production of 25.0 g/L isoprene with a yield of 0.277 g/g of glucose. The results strongly suggested that coupling of the complementary reducing equivalent demand and ATP requirement plays an important role in the synergy of the dual pathway, which was suggested to improve the production of a broad range of terpenoids in microorganisms.