Extracting Nylon Raw Material from Microbes... World's Highest Concentration

Development of Eco-friendly Bio-based Microbial Strains
Expected Applications in Various Fields

System Metabolic Engineering Strategies for Developing Corynebacterium glutamicum with High Glutaric Acid Production Capability

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] A technology has been developed that can produce glutaric acid, an industrial raw material used in the manufacture of polyester and nylon, at the world's highest level by utilizing microorganisms. The research team expects that if production efficiency is further improved, it could be applied in chemical, environmental, and medical fields.

Professor Sang Yup Lee's research team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced on the 19th that these research results were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Professor Lee's team had previously succeeded in developing microorganisms that produce glutaric acid by introducing genes from a soil bacterium strain called 'Sphingomonas putida' into Escherichia coli. In this study, they succeeded in increasing the concentration of glutaric acid produced by the microorganisms.

The research team utilized a type of bacterium mainly used for amino acid production called 'Corynebacterium glutamicum.' Because this strain produces more than 130 g/L of lysine, a precursor (a substance in the previous stage) of glutaric acid, they anticipated that high concentrations of glutaric acid production would also be possible. The team constructed a biosynthetic pathway in Corynebacterium glutamicum using foreign genes derived from Sphingomonas putida and genes from Corynebacterium glutamicum itself. Through this, they succeeded in efficiently producing glutaric acid from glucose.

Sangyeop Lee, Distinguished Professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and Taehee Han, PhD Candidate in the Department of Bio and Chemical Engineering

In particular, the research team conducted multi-omics analyses encompassing the genome, transcriptome, and fluxome of the Corynebacterium glutamicum strain to enhance understanding of the strain's metabolic flow. They also manipulated 11 predicted target genes through promoter exchange, gene deletion, and additional gene introduction methods. Through this, they discovered a new glutaric acid transporter gene for efficient glutaric acid production, and by controlling the expression level of this gene and optimizing fermentation conditions, they succeeded in producing glutaric acid with the world's highest concentration from glucose. The glutaric acid produced by the research team reached 105.3 g per liter, about 1.17 times higher than previous studies.

A representative of the research team stated, "By applying the systems metabolic engineering strategy and fermentation process optimization technology used in this study, it is also possible to develop microbial cell processes that produce various high value-added chemicals besides glutaric acid." Professor Sang Yup Lee emphasized, "This study is significant in that it created a strain that produces glutaric acid, a raw material for polyester and nylon, from renewable carbon sources in an eco-friendly manner at the world's highest concentration using systems metabolic engineering," adding, "It is expected to have various industrial applications in chemical, environmental, and medical fields in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.