Bio-based production of glutaric acid: A monomer of polyester and nylon

A microbial strain was developed that is capable of producing world’s highest level of glutaric acid from a renewable source. This new strategy will be useful for bio-based production of polyester, nylon, and other value-added chemicals.

Article | Spring 2021

A microbial strain capable of producing the world’s highest level of glutaric acid has been developed. Glutaric acid is an important organic compound widely used in a variety of applications including the production of polyesters, polyamides, polyurethanes, glutaric anhydride, and 1,5-pentanediol. Thus far, glutaric acid has been produced by a variety of chemical methods based on petrochemicals, but these are not environmentally friendly because they rely on non-renewable and highly toxic starting materials.

In order to overcome this drawback, a glutaric acid biosynthetic pathway was constructed in a Corynebacterium glutamicum strain, a bacterium widely used for amino acid production. Multi-omics analyses including genome, transcriptome, and fluxome were conducted to understand the phenotype of the host strain and to further predict gene manipulation targets. Furthermore, the new glutaric acid exporter was discovered for the first time, which was used to further increase glutaric acid production through enhancing product excretion. As a result, the final engineered strain was able to produce 105.3 g/L glutaric acid, the highest titer ever reported, in 69 hours by fed-batch fermentation. It is meaningful to develop a highly efficient glutaric acid producer capable of producing glutaric acid at the world’s highest titer without any byproducts from renewable carbon sources. These results will further accelerate the eco-friendly production of valuable chemicals in pharmaceutical/medical/chemical industries.

This paper entitled, “Glutaric acid production by systems metabolic engineering of an L-lysine-overproducing Corynebacterium glutamicum” was published online in PNAS on November 16, 2020 (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017483117).