The aim of this work was to study the fermentative production of the N-methylated amino acid sarcosine by C. glutamicum. Characterization of the imine reductase DpkA from Pseudomonas putida revealed… Click to show full abstract
The aim of this work was to study the fermentative production of the N-methylated amino acid sarcosine by C. glutamicum. Characterization of the imine reductase DpkA from Pseudomonas putida revealed that it catalyses N-methylamination of glyoxylate to sarcosine. Heterologous expression of dpkA in a C. glutamicum strain engineered for glyoxylate overproduction enabled fermentative production of sarcosine from sugars and monomethylamine. Glucose-based fermentation reached sarcosine production titers of 2.4 ± 0.1 g L-1. Sarcosine production based on the second generation feedstocks xylose and arabinose led to higher product titers of 2.7 ± 0.1 g L-1 and 3.4 ± 0.3 g L-1, respectively, than glucose-based production. Optimization of production conditions with xylose and potassium acetate blends increased sarcosine titers to 8.7 ± 0.2 g L-1 with a yield of 0.25 g g-1. This is the first example in which a C. glutamicum process using lignocellulosic pentoses is superior to glucose-based production.
               
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