GroE is one of the essential chaperones of Escherichia coli assisting the folding of other intracellular proteins and the protein is indispensable for the viability of E. coli. Recently, a few studies have shown that the intracellular amount and activity of GroEL can change the cellular physiology by improving the folding efficiencies or preventing the aggregations of essential proteins under the uncomfortable conditions of cells. Based on the previous reports regarding the effect of GroE chaperone on cellular activity, we presumed that the physiology of E. coli may be engineered by engineering intracellular GroE protein. Here, as a first step to confirm the presumption, we attempted to improve the growth rate of E. coli through engineering a wild type groELS gene from E. coli. The groELS gene from E. coli was engineered by typical directed evolution technology, i.e. mutagenesis and screening. The selected GroEL variant was introduced into E. coli DH5alpha and the effect of the GroEL variant on the growth of the E. coli was investigated.

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