The present disclosure describes methods for generating microbial strains expressing a heterologous bacterial glucose permease gene that produce biomolecules of interest. In aspects, the disclosure provides novel bacterial strains, which express a heterologous bacterial glucose permease gene whose expression is controlled by a native Corynebacterium glutamicum promoter or a mutant promoter derived therefrom. Also provided herein are methods for producing a library of bacterial glucose permease genes using a promoter ladder comprising a plurality of promoters derived from Corynebacterium glutamicum.