Recombinant microorganism for the fermentative production of methionine

1. A recombinant microorganism optimised for the fermentative production of methionine, wherein the activity of the cobalamin-independent methionine synthase MetE is suppressed and the metH gene is overexpressed in said microorganism compared to a non-modified microorganism.

2. The microorganism of claim 1 , wherein the cobalamin-independent methionine synthase MetE is encoded by the metE gene of which at least a portion is deleted.

3. The microorganism of claim 2 , wherein the deletion of the metE gene is a deletion of the bases comprised between the 417th and 429th positions by reference to the sequence SEQ ID NO: 20.

4. The microorganism of claim 1 , wherein the expression of at least one of the following genes is increased: ptsG, pyc, pntAB, cysP, cysU, cysW, cysA, cysM, cysJ, cysI, cysH, gcvT, gcvH, gcvP, lpd, serA, serB, serC, cysE, metF, thrA, metA allele encoding for an enzyme with reduced feed-back sensitivity to S-adenosylmethionine and/or methionine (metA*), thrA, or a thrA allele encoding for an enzyme with reduced feed-back inhibition to threonine (thrA*).

5. The microorganism of claim 4 , wherein at least one gene is under the control of an inducible promoter.

6. The microorganism of claim 1 , wherein the expression of at least one of the following genes is attenuated: metJ, pykA, pykF, purU, ybdL or yncA.

7. The microorganism of claim 1 , wherein:

a. the gene metE is deleted

b. the expression of the genes metA*, cysPUWAM, cysJIH, gcvTHP, metF, serA, serB, serC, cysE, thrA* and pyc are enhanced; and

c. the expression of the genes metJ, pykA, pykF, purU and yncA are attenuated.

8. The microorganism of claim 1 , wherein said microorganism is from the bacterial family Enterobacteriaceae or Corynebacteriaceae.

9. The microorganism of claim 1 , wherein said microorganism is Escherichia coli.

10. A method for the fermentative production of methionine comprising the steps of:

a. culturing a recombinant microorganism according to claim 1 in an appropriate culture medium comprising a fermentable source of carbon and a source of sulphur, and

b. recovering methionine or its derivatives from the culture medium.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein growth of the recombinant microorganism is subjected to limitation or deficiency for one or several inorganic substrate(s), in particular phosphate and/or potassium, in the culture medium.