원문정보
초록
영어
Polylactic acid (PLA) is a promising biomass-derived polymer, but is currently synthesized by a two-step process: fermentative production of lactic acid followed by chemical polymerization. Introduction of the heterologous metabolic pathways involving engineered propionate CoA-transferase and polyhydroxyalkanoate synthase allowed one-step production of PLA and its copolymers in E. coli, but at relatively low efficiency. Here, the metabolic pathways of E. coli were further engineered based on in silico genome-scale metabolic flux analysis. Using this engineered strain, PLA homopolymer and P(3HB-co-LA) copolymers containing up to 70 mol% lactate could be produced to 11 wt% and 46 wt% from glucose, respectively. Also, P(3HB-co-LA) copolymers containing 55-86 mol% lactate could be produced up to 56 wt% from glucose and 3HB. Thus, this strategy should be generally useful for developing other engineered organisms capable of producing various unnatural polymers by direct fermentation from renewable resources. This work was supported by LG Chem and by the Korean Systems Biology Research Project (20090065571) of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) through the National Research Foundation of Korea. Further supports by the World Class University Program
(R32-2008-000-10142-0) of the MEST, LG Chem Chair Professorship, IBM SUR program, and Microsoft are appreciated.