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Malic acid, a petroleum-derived C4-dicarboxylic acid that is used in the food and beverage industries, is also produced by a number of microorganisms that follow a variety of metabolic routes. Several members of the genus Aspergillus utilize a two-step cytosolic pathway from pyruvate to malate known as the reductive tricarboxylic acid (rTCA) pathway. This simple and efficient pathway has a maximum theoretical yield of 2 mol malate/mol glucose when the starting pyruvate originates from glycolysis. Production of malic acid by Aspergillus oryzae NRRL 3488 was first improved by overexpression of a native C4-dicarboxylate transporter, leading to a greater than twofold increase in the rate of malate production. Overexpression of the native cytosolic alleles of pyruvate carboxylase and malate dehydrogenase, comprising the rTCA pathway, in conjunction with the transporter resulted in an additional 27 % increase in malate production rate. A strain overexpressing all three genes achieved a malate titer of 154 g/L in 164 h, corresponding to a production rate of 0.94 g/L/h, with an associated yield on glucose of 1.38 mol/mol (69 % of the theoretical maximum). This rate of malate production is the highest reported for any microbial system.

Abstract: Glucosamine and N-acetylglucosamine are currently produced by extraction and acid hydrolysis of chitin from shellfish waste. Production could be limited by the amount of raw material available and the product potentially carries the risk of shellfish protein contamination. Escherichia coli was modified by metabolic engineering to develop a fermentation process. Over-expression of glucosamine synthase (GlmS) and inactivation of catabolic genes increased glucosamine production by 15 fold, reaching 60mgl−1. Since GlmS is strongly inhibited by glucosamine-6-P, GlmS variants were generated via error-prone PCR and screened. Over-expression of an improved enzyme led to a glucosamine titer of 17gl−1. Rapid degradation of glucosamine and inhibitory effects of glucosamine and its degradation products on host cells limited further improvement. An alternative fermentation product, N-acetylglucosamine, is stable, non-inhibitory to the host and readily hydrolyzed to glucosamine under acidic conditions. Therefore, the glucosamine pathway was extended to N-acetylglucosamine by over-expressing a heterologous glucosamine-6-P N-acetyltransferase. Using a simple and low-cost fermentation process developed for this strain, over 110gl−1 of N-acetylglucosamine was produced. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]