Protein and metabolic engineering for the production of organic acids

JingjingLiu, JianghuaLi, Hyun-dongShin, LongLiu, GuochengDu, JianChen

Key Laboratory of Carbohydrate Chemistry and Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China.

Abstract

Organic acids are natural metabolites of living organisms. They have been widely applied in the food, pharmaceutical, and bio-based materials industries. In recent years, biotechnological routes to organic acids production from renewable raw materials have been regarded as very promising approaches. In this review, we provide an overview of current developments in the production of organic acids using protein and metabolic engineering strategies. The organic acids include propionic acid, pyruvate, itaconic acid, succinic acid, fumaric acid, malic acid and citric acid. We also expect that rapid developments in the fields of systems biology and synthetic biology will accelerate protein and metabolic engineering for microbial organic acid production in the future.

Keywords: Organic acid, Carboxylic acid, Protein, Metabolic engineering, Biosynthetic pathways.