Application of an Alternative Recombinant System for Chondroitin Sulfate Synthesis

In this study, we aimed to derive Chondroitin Sulphate (CS), which has the opportunity to be used in osteoarthritis which is one of the major health problems of the ever increasing elder population in the world and in other health-related fields, from microbial sources at high purity using the recombinant strains transmitting the VHb/vgb system via safe biotechnological processes. The resources of animal origin such as cattle, pig, poultry and shark are used for the production of CS. However, the tendency for the production of CS based on alternative resources instead of animal resources has increased for many reasons. Nowadays, microbial production methods gain importance as a strong alternative to CS synthesis. Our study aimed to create a novel E. coli strain as a recombinant system which carry the common expression of genes by transforming the plasmids of both pUC8: 15, which carries the vgb gene, and pETM6-PACF, which carries the genes of kfoA, kfoC, kfoF which are responsible for chondroitin synthesis. For this purpose, firstly, the plasmids of both pUC8:15 and pETM6-PACF were transferred to the non-pathogenic E. coli strain and the presence of both plasmids was confirmed with colony PCR method. This situation was documented with gel photographs.