Fig. 3

Lycopene production in P. putida KTLYC cells harboring the MVA pathway. KTLYC cells transformed with vectors either containing or not the MVA pathway were cultured in LB. Expression of the MVA pathway operon was induced 3 h after inoculation by adding 0.2% (w/v) L-rhamnose to the culture. After 24 h, cell growth was estimated as optical density at 600 nm (OD₆₀₀) and lycopene accumulation was calculated by measuring the absorbance at 472 nm of acetone extracts. a OD₆₀₀ values. b Lycopene levels normalized to cell density and represented relative to those in cells without the MVA pathway. Values shown are the mean ± SD of three independent assays. The asterisk indicates statistically significant difference (T test, P-value < 0.05)