Metabolic Engineering of Escherichia coli for the Production of Cadaverine from Lignocellulose

Efficient production of biobased monomers from lignocellulosic hydrolysates is considered an important approach to reducing product costs and achieving sustainable biomanufacturing. However, the low conversion efficiency leads to a low yield and extended fermentation cycles. Here, we enhanced the utilization efficiency of xylose by strengthening the isomerase pathway. Subsequently, we successfully developed an efficient strain capable of synchronous glucose-xylose utilization for cadaverine production, thereby reducing the fermentation time from 30 to 24 h. Through optimization of the fermentation process, cadaverine production reached the highest level of 60.74 g/L in glucose-xylose mixture fermentation, with a yield of 0.34 g/g_sugar and a total sugar utilization rate of 3.65 g/L/h in a 5 L fermenter. When applied to the fermentation of corn stalk hydrolysate, 24.42 g/L cadaverine was obtained, with a yield of 0.32 g/g_sugar. This work has laid the foundation for the large-scale production of biobased monomers from lignocellulosic hydrolysates.