Fermentative production of L-pipecolic acid from glucose and alternative carbon sources

Corynebacterium glutamicum is used for the million-ton scale production of amino acids and has recently been engineered for production of the cyclic non-proteinogenic amino acid L-pipecolic acid (L-PA). In this synthetic pathway L-lysine was converted to L-PA by oxidative deamination, dehydration and reduction by L-lysine 6-dehydrogenase (deaminating) from Silicibacter pomeroyi and pyrroline 5-carboxylate reductase from C. glutamicum. However, production of L-PA occurred as by-product of L-lysine production only. Here, the author show that abolishing L-lysine export by the respective gene deletion resulted in production of L-PA as major product without concomitant lysine production while the specific growth rate was reduced due to accumulation of high intracellular lysine concentrations. Increasing expression of the genes encoding L-lysine 6-dehydrogenase and pyrroline 5-carboxylate reductase in C. glutamicum strain PIPE4 increased the L-PA titer to 3.9 g L^-1 , and allowed faster growth and, thus, a higher volumetric productivity of 0.08 ± 0.00 g L^-1 h^-1 respectively. Secondly, expression of heterologous genes for utilization of glycerol, xylose, glucosamine, and starch in strain PIPE4 enabled L-PA production from these alternative carbon sources. Third, in a glucose/sucrose-based fed-batch fermentation with C. glutamicum PIPE4 L-PA was produced to a titer of 14.4 g L^-1 with a volumetric productivity of 0.21 g L^-1 h^-1 and an overall yield of 0.20 g g^-1 .