Fig. 2

Establishment of a protoilludene biosynthesis pathway in E. coli a Expression construct of AO portion. AO operon, which is composed of FPP synthase ispA from E. coli and protoilludene synthase OMP7 from O. olearius, is cloned into pTrc99A vector and designated as pTAO. Ec, the gene from E. coli; Oo, the gene from O. olearius. b Identification of protoilludene product. The decane phase from two-phase culture of E. coli AO/NA strain was subjected to GC and GC–MS analysis. c Protoilludene production and mevalonate accumulation in culture of the strain E. coli AO/NA. The strain was grown at 30 °C in 4 mL of 2YT medium with 2 % (v/v) glycerol for 24 and 48 h, and overlaid with 1 mL of decane. The dark gray and light gray bars indicate protoilludene production and mevalonate accumulation, respectively