L-lysine is an essential amino acid used in various industrial sectors but mainly in food and animal feed. Intense research has been directed toward increasing its productivity. The technologies developed in the L-lysine field are registered in documents such as patents and articles, which can be used to trace the technical-scientific and sociogeographical production profile. To study these profiles, a text-mining technique associated with carefully formulated keywords was used. Geographic analysis has shown a greater tendency for countries with industrial plants with large production capacity to submit patents or publish articles, while the social analysis reflected the close relationship between educational units and companies. Some of these companies presented a direction of effort for their physical or theoretical capacity expansion at different time intervals. The chronological analysis allows us to highlight the role of articles and patents in the registration of the technological transition. The technologies of each document were divided into (1) optimization of fermentation parameters, (2) conventional mutation, and (3) genetic engineering. Finally, the documents of the first technological class were evaluated and discussed, emphasizing the great interest in conducting continuous and fed batch processes and in the fermentative parameter controls that lead to cell metabolism in order to favor L-lysine formation. Furthermore, a descriptive flow of the substrate uptake mechanism and an amino acid metabolism and excretion mechanism were developed for the illustration of microbial physiology and molecular technologies to increase L-lysine productivity.

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