Fig. 1: Design and analysis of different pathways for the reduction of formate to formaldehyde.
a Reactions schemes for the different formate reduction routes discussed in this study. The enzymes for each respective route are provided using the following color-coding: T4F route (purple), CoA route (light blue), Pi route (dark blue). PTA, which can be used to toggle between CoA and Pi routes, is shown in gray. * indicates (plausible) new-to-nature reactions. ACS acetyl-CoA synthetase, ACR acyl-CoA reductase, PTA phosphate acetyl transferase, ACK acetate kinase, FPR formyl phosphate reductase, FTL formate tetrahydrofolate ligase, MTC methylene tetrahydrofolate cyclohydrolase, MTD methylene tetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase, T4F tetrahydrofolate, spon. spontaneous hydrolysis. b MDF calculations for the three routes with either NADPH (solid line) or NADH (dashed line) as reduction equivalent. Energy profiles of individual reactions are given in Supplementary Table 1. c FBA calculations for the production of 12 relevant metabolic precursors as well as biomass via the three routes and the RuMP pathway in E. coli. g6p glucose 6-phosphate, f6p fructose 6-phosphate, e4p erythrose 4-phosphate, r5p ribose 5-phosphate, g3p glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate, 3pg glycerate 3-phosphate, pep phosphoenolpyruvate, pyr pyruvate, accoa: acetyl-CoA, akg 2-ketoglutarate, succoa: succinyl-CoA, oaa oxaloacetate. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
