Accelerated green process of 2,5-dimethylpyrazine production from glucose by genetically modified Escherichia coli

2,5-dimethylpyrazine (2,5-DMP) is an indispensable additive for flavouring in food industry and an important substrate for producing hypoglycemic and antilipolytic drugs. However, 2,5-DMP is produced by chemical synthesis in industry. Herein, a "green" strategy to produce 2,5-DMP has been reported for the first time. To do this, we rewrited the de novo 2,5-DMP biosynthesis pathway and substrate transmembrane transport in L-threonine high-yielding strain to promote highly efficient 2,5-DMP production from glucose by submerged fermentation. The final strain T6-47-7 could produce 1.43±0.07 g/L of 2,5-DMP with a carbon yield of 6.78% and productivity of 0.715 g/(L∙d) in shake-flask fermentation using a phase-wise manner of hypoxia-inducible expression. The design-based strategy for constructing 2,5-DMP high-yielding strain reported here could serve as a general concept for breeding high-yielding strains that produce some other type of alkylpyrazine.