Sucrose is one of the most promising carbon sources for industrial fermentation. We expressed synthetic modules expressing genes of the PEP-PTS and non-PTS pathways in Escherichia coil K12 for comparison. We selected PEP-PTS pathway genes of Lactobacillus plantarum and Staphylococcus xylosus and non-PTS pathway genes of sucrose-utilizing (Sar(+)) E. coil EC3132. Switchable Scr(+) modules expressing E. coli EC3132 non-PTS genes conferred better sucrose-utilizing ability on Scr(-) E. coil K12 than E. coil EC3132. Scr(+) modules expressing S. xylosus PEP-PTS genes conferred a sucrose-utilizing ability on E. coli K12. Among L plantarum PEP-PTS genes, SacA(LP) and SacK(LP) were functional in E. coli K12. CscA(EC)-CscB(EC)-CscK(EC) (non-PEP-PTS module) or ScrA(SX)-SacA(LP)-SacK(LP) (PEP-PTS module) was introduced to a diapolycopene-producing E. coli strain. In both Scr(+) E. coli K12, the sucrose-utilizing ability of the modules was not affected by diapolycopene formation, indicating that the modular Scr(+) systems could be employed for developing sustainable bioprocesses using sucrose. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.