Awakening sleeping beauty: production of propionic acid in Escherichia coli through the sbm operon requires the activity of a methylmalonyl-CoA epimerase.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Propionic acid is used primarily as a food preservative with smaller applications as a chemical building block for the production of many products including fabrics, cosmetics, drugs, and plastics. Biological production using propionibacteria would be competitive against chemical production through hydrocarboxylation of ethylene if native producers could be engineered to reach near-theoretical yield and good productivity. Unfortunately, engineering propionibacteria has proven very challenging. It has been suggested that activation of the sleeping beauty operon in Escherichia coli is sufficient to achieve propionic acid production. Optimising E. coli production should be much easier than engineering propionibacteria if tolerance issues can be addressed.

Results

Pro

SUBMITTER: Gonzalez-Garcia RA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5512728 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature