Rational design of heptaprenyl diphosphate synthase and metabolic optimization drive biosynthesis of menaquinone-7 by Escherichia coli.
Menaquinone-7 (MK-7) is a fat-soluble vitamin with important nutritional and pharmaceutical applications. However, microbial biosynthesis of MK-7 is limited by low catalytic efficiency of key enzymes, insufficient precursor supply, and imbalanced availability of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH). In t...