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Poor high salt stress resistance remained as a main hurdle limiting the efficient bio-based succinic acid production. In this study, the metabolically engineered E. coli not only showed improvement of high salt stress tolerance through expression of a global regulator IrrE, but also could use seawater for succinic acid fermentation. The recombinant strain showed an increased 1.20-fold of cell growth rate and 1.24-fold of succinic acid production. Expression levels of genes related glucose uptake and succinic acid synthesis were up-regulated, and more glycerol and trehalose were accumulated. Moreover, no significant differences were observed in cell growth even when tap water was replaced by 60% artificial seawater. In the fermentation using Yellow Sea seawater, 24.5 g/L succinic acid was achieved with a yield of 0.88 g/g. This strategy set up a platform for improving abiotic stress tolerances and provide a possible approach for fermentation processes with low cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]