Background
Lignocellulose biomass contains high amount of biotin and resulted in an excessive biotin condition for cellulosic glutamic acid accumulation by
Corynebacterium glutamicum
. Penicillin or ethambutol triggers cellulosic glutamic acid accumulation, but they are not suitable for practical use due to the fermentation instability and environmental concerns. Efficient glutamic acid production from lignocellulose feedstocks should be achieved without any chemical inductions.
Results
An industrial strain
C. glutamicum
S9114 was metabolically engineered to achieve efficient glutamic acid accumulation in biotin-excessive corn stover hydrolysate. Among the multiple metabolic engineering efforts, two pathway regulations effectively triggered the glutamic acid accumulation in lignocellulose hydrolysate. The C-terminal truncation of glutamate secretion channel MscCG (ΔC110) led to the successful glutamic acid secretion in corn stover hydrolysate without inductions. Then the α-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase complex (ODHC) activity was attenuated by regulating
odhA
RBS sequence, and glutamic acid accumulation was further elevated for more than fivefolds. The obtained
C. glutamicum
XW6 strain reached a record-high titer of 65.2 g/L with the overall yield of 0.63 g/g glucose using corn stover as the starting feedstock without any chemical induction.
Conclusions
Metabolic engineering method was successfully applied to achieve efficient glutamic acid in biotin-rich lignocellulose hydrolysate for the first time. This study demonstrated the high potential of glutamic acid production from lignocellulose feedstock.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (10.1186/s13068-019-1428-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.