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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, March 1999, p. 1099-1109, Vol. 65, No. 3
Institut für Biotechnologie,
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, D-52425 Jülich, Germany
Received 8 September 1998/Accepted 11 December 1998
Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) and glutamine synthetase
(GS)-glutamine 2-oxoglutarate-aminotransferase (GOGAT) represent the two main pathways of ammonium assimilation in Corynebacterium glutamicum. In this study, the ammonium assimilating fluxes in vivo in the wild-type ATCC 13032 strain and its GDH mutant were quantitated in continuous cultures. To do this, the incorporation of
15N label from [15N]ammonium in
glutamate and glutamine was monitored with a time resolution of
about 10 min with in vivo 15N nuclear magnetic resonance
(NMR) used in combination with a recently developed high-cell-density
membrane-cyclone NMR bioreactor system. The data were used to tune a
standard differential equation model of ammonium assimilation that
comprised ammonia transmembrane diffusion, GDH, GS, GOGAT, and
glutamine amidotransferases, as well as the anabolic incorporation
of glutamate and glutamine into biomass. The results provided
a detailed picture of the fluxes involved in ammonium
assimilation in the two different C. glutamicum strains in vivo. In both strains, transmembrane
equilibration of 100 mM [15N]ammonium took less than 2 min. In the wild type, an unexpectedly high fraction of 28% of the
NH4+ was assimilated via the GS reaction in
glutamine, while 72% were assimilated by the reversible GDH reaction
via glutamate. GOGAT was inactive. The analysis identified
glutamine as an important nitrogen donor in amidotransferase reactions.
The experimentally determined amount of 28% of nitrogen assimilated
via glutamine is close to a theoretical 21% calculated from the high
peptidoglycan content of C. glutamicum. In the GDH mutant,
glutamate was exclusively synthesized over the GS/GOGAT pathway. Its
level was threefold reduced compared to the wild type.
0099-2240/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
In Vivo Fluxes in the Ammonium-Assimilatory
Pathways in Corynebacterium glutamicum Studied by
15N Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institute
of Biotechnology 1, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, D-52425
Jülich, Germany. Phone: 49-2461-61-3969. Fax:
49-2461-61-2710. E-mail: a.de.graaf{at}fz-juelich.de.
Present address: Weingut Tesch, D-55450 Langenlohnsheim, Germany.
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