earticle

영어

For sustainable low carbon, recycling economy in future, marine biomass has potential as resources for bio-based energy, plastics, chemicals, and so on. We have been developing the biorefinery system to utilizing carbohydrates derived from brown algae to produce organic acids with high efficiency and high productivity. Alginates, laminaran and mannitol are most abundant carbohydrates of Laminaria japonica, but they are not easy-fermentable saccharides for most microorganisms even after pretreated chemically and/or physically, which contributes to low efficiency and availability of microbial transformation of brown algae. To achieve a high performance biorefinery system using brown algae, 1) we, from the gut of marine animals, screened and identified microorganisms which can digest polysaccharides of L. japonica to monosaccharides and simultaneously ferment them into organic acids; and 2) also, as the platform technology of bio-based chemical production, we have developed the continuous process of improved efficiency and yield of the organic acids-production via biotransformation of brown algae. Further research on metabolic flux analysis and metabolic engineering of the targeted microorganism will improve the technology of biotranformation of brown algae as resources for renewable biomaterials.