Genetic engineering of Escherichia coli for the production of NI,NII-diacetylchitobiose (chitinbiose) and its utilization as a primer for the synthesis of complex carbohydrates.

Chitinbiose was produced at more than 4 g L-1 by a high cell density culture of an Escherichia coli strain that co-expressed the rhizobial chitinoligosaccharide synthase gene nodC and a truncated form of the chitinase gene chiA which has been designed to be functionally produced in the E. coli cytoplasm. Chitinpentaose, which has previously been shown to be produced by the nodC protein in growing E. coli, was formed as an intermediate that was subsequently hydrolyzed into chitinbiose by the chitinase encoded by chiA. Chitinbiose was mainly recovered in the extracellular medium and to prevent its catabolism, the genes for the chitinbiose PTS permease had to be disrupted. When the additional gene lgtB for beta1,4-galactosyltransferase was expressed, intracellular chitinbiose was converted into the trisaccharide Galbeta-4GlcNAcbeta-4GlcNAc which could serve as acceptor for glycosyltransferase that recognize the terminal N-acetyllactosamine structure.