Requirement of a Functional Flavin Mononucleotide Prenyltransferase for the Activity of a Bacterial Decarboxylase in a Heterologous Muconic Acid Pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Biotechnological production of cis,cis-muconic acid from renewable feedstocks is an environmentally sustainable alternative to conventional, petroleum-based methods. Even though a heterologous production pathway for cis,cis-muconic acid has already been established in the host organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the generation of industrially relevant amounts of cis,cis-muconic acid is hampered by the low activity of the bacterial protocatechuic acid (PCA) decarboxylase AroY isomeric subunit C^iso (AroY-C^iso), leading to secretion of large amounts of the intermediate PCA into the medium. In the present study, we show that the activity of AroY-C^iso in S. cerevisiae strongly depends on the strain background. We could demonstrate that the strain dependency is caused by the presence or absence of an intact genomic copy of PAD1, which encodes a mitochondrial enzyme responsible for the biosynthesis of a prenylated form of the cofactor flavin mononucleotide (prFMN). The inactivity of AroY-C^iso in strain CEN.PK2-1 could be overcome by plasmid-borne expression of Pad1 or its bacterial homologue AroY subunit B (AroY-B). Our data reveal that the two enzymes perform the same function in decarboxylation of PCA by AroY-C^iso, although coexpression of Pad1 led to higher decarboxylase activity. Conversely, AroY-B can replace Pad1 in its function in decarboxylation of phenylacrylic acids by ferulic acid decarboxylase Fdc1. Targeting of the majority of AroY-B to mitochondria by fusion to a heterologous mitochondrial targeting signal did not improve decarboxylase activity of AroY-C^iso, suggesting that mitochondrial localization has no major impact on cofactor biosynthesis.IMPORTANCE In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the decarboxylation of protocatechuic acid (PCA) to catechol is the bottleneck reaction in the heterologous biosynthetic pathway for production of cis,cis-muconic acid, a valuable precursor for the production of bulk chemicals. In our work, we demonstrate the importance of the strain background for the activity of a bacterial PCA decarboxylase in S. cerevisiae Inactivity of the decarboxylase is due to a nonsense mutation in a gene encoding a mitochondrial enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of a cofactor required for decarboxylase function. Our study reveals functional interchangeability of Pad1 and a bacterial homologue, irrespective of their intracellular localization. Our results open up new possibilities to improve muconic acid production by engineering cofactor supply. Furthermore, the results have important implications for the choice of the production strain.