Metabolic engineering of the L-phenylalanine pathway in Escherichia coli for the production of S- or R-mandelic acid.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Mandelic acid (MA), an important component in pharmaceutical syntheses, is currently produced exclusively via petrochemical processes. Growing concerns over the environment and fossil energy costs have inspired a quest to develop alternative routes to MA using renewable resources. Herein we report the first direct route to optically pure MA from glucose via genetic modification of the L-phenylalanine pathway in E. coli.

Results

The introduction of hydroxymandelate synthase (HmaS) from Amycolatopsis orientalis into E. coli led to a yield of 0.092 g/L S-MA. By combined deletion of competing pathways, further optimization of S-MA production was achieved, and the yield reached 0.74 g/L within 24 h. To produce R-MA, hydroxymandelate oxidase (Hmo) from Streptomyces coel

SUBMITTER: Sun Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3182895 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature