High-titer production of aromatic amines in metabolically engineered Escherichia coli

Aromatic amines are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. Here, we reported the establishment of a bacterial platform for synthesizing three types of aromatic amines, namely, tyramine, dopamine, and phenylethylamine. Firstly, we expressed aromatic amino acid decarboxylase from Enterococcus faecium (pheDC) in an Escherichia coli strain with an increased shikimate (SHK) pathway flux toward L-tyrosine or L-phenylalanine synthesis. We found that glycerol served as a better carbon source than glucose, resulting in 940 mg/L tyramine from 4% glycerol. Next, the genes of lactate dehydrogenase (ldhA), formate acetyltransferase (pflB), phosphate acetyltransferase (pta), and alcohol dehydrogenase (adhE) were deleted to mitigate the fermentation byproduct formation. The tyramine level was further increased to 1.965 g/L in shake flasks, corresponding to 2.1 times improvement compared with that of the parental strain. By using a similar strategy, we also managed to produce 703 mg/L dopamine and 555 mg/L phenethylamine. In summary, we have demonstrated that the knockout of ldhA-pflB-pta-adhE is an effective strategy in improving aromatic amine productions, and achieved the highest aromatic amine titers in E. coli under shake flasks reported to date.

Influence of Partial Replacements of NaCl by KCl on Quality Characteristics and the Heterocyclic Aromatic Amine Contents of Bacon

The influence of partial replacements of NaCl by KCl (0, 10, 20, and 30%) on the heterocyclic aromatic amine (HAAs) contents and quality characteristics of bacon were investigated. The Na+ content, moisture, aw, pH, L* value, and sensory saltiness decreased and K+ content, a* value, and sensory bitterness increased significantly with increased substituting rates of NaCl by KCl (p < 0.05). There were no significant differences between the control and KCl substitution samples for the b* value, redness, and sensory off-odor (p > 0.05). The creatine content was not affected by the different KCl-substituting rates during the marinating process (p > 0.05), but it diminished in the smoking and frying processes (p < 0.05). The increase in the KCl-substituting rates increased the total heterocyclic aromatic amine (HAA) contents in fried bacon (p < 0.05). Moreover, the nonpolar HAA content in bacon was higher than the polar HAA content (p < 0.05). In summary, the partial replacement of NaCl by KCl increased the total HAA content and led to changes in bacon quality.

Surface Functionalization of Black Phosphorus via Amine Compounds and Its Impacts on the Flame Retardancy and Thermal Decomposition Behaviors of Epoxy Resin

Recently, lots of effort has been placed into stabilizing black phosphorus (BP) in the air to improve its compatibility with polymers. Herein, BP was chemically functionalized by aliphatic amine (DETA), aromatic amine (PPDA) and cyclamine (Pid) via a nucleophilic substitution reaction, aiming to develop an intensively reactive BP flame retardant for epoxy resin (EP). The -NH2 group on BP-DETA, BP-PPDA and BP-Pid reacted with the epoxide group at different temperatures. The lowest temperature was about 150 °C for BP-DETA. The impacts of three BP-NH2 were compared on the flame retardancy and thermal decomposition of EP. At 5 wt% loading, EP/BP-NH2 all passed UL 94 V 0 rating. The limiting oxygen index (LOI) of EP/BP-PPDA was as high as 32.3%. The heat release rate (HRR) of EP/BP-DETA greatly decreased by 46% and char residue increased by 73.8%, whereas HRR of EP/BP-Pid decreased by 11.5% and char residue increased by 50.8%, compared with EP. Average effective heat of combustion (av-EHC) of EP/BP-Pid was lower than that of EP/BP-DETA and EP/BP-PPDA. In view of the flame-retardant mechanism, BP nanosheets functionalized with aliphatic amine and aromatic amine played a dominant role in the condensed phase, while BP functionalized with cyclamine was more effective in the gas phase.