The nicotinamide cofactors including nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and its phosphate (NADP) play important roles in facilitating redox reactions for energy metabolism and biosynthesis. To expand the cofactor menu, a non-natural cofactor nicotinamide cytosine dinucleotide (NCD) has been introduced recently. The reduced forms of these cofactors carry reducing equivalents that are essential for cellular metabolism. However, there is a long standing challenge to rationally transfer reducing equivalent from one cofactor to another, albeit such process is highly demanding in metabolic engineering. This study develops a new approach based on malic enzyme (ME)-mediated transhydrogenation to enable reducing equivalents exchange among different cofactors. We used wild-type ME, MaeB and an engineered ME∗ that favors NAD, NADP and NCD, respectively, to demonstrate such conversions. When an in vitro system initiated with equal amount of NADH and NCD in the presence of ME, ME∗ and excess amount of pyruvate was held for 2 h, up to 65 % NADH was consumed and 57 % NCDH was generated. When implemented into NCD self-sufficient Escherichia coli cells, the system directed reducing equivalents toward NCDH-linked formation of lactate. Overall, this work offers an effective strategy to regulate intracellular reducing equivalents that may serve as a novel tool for metabolic engineering and synthetic biology.
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