Metabolic engineering of the fungal D-galacturonate pathway for L-ascorbic acid production.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Synthetic L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is widely used as a preservative and nutrient in food and pharmaceutical industries. In the current production method, D-glucose is converted to L-ascorbic acid via several biochemical and chemical steps. The main source of L-ascorbic acid in human nutrition is plants. Several alternative metabolic pathways for L-ascorbic acid biosynthesis are known in plants. In one of them, D-galacturonic acid is the precursor. D-Galacturonic acid is also the main monomer in pectin, a plant cell wall polysaccharide. Pectin is abundant in biomass and is readily available from several waste streams from fruit and sugar processing industries.

Results

In the present work, we engineered the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger for the conversion

SUBMITTER: Kuivanen J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4299797 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature