Construction of the metabolic pathway for microbial production of glycolic acid from unutilized resources by an enzyme screening

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25820395
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Biofunction/Bioprocess
• Research Institution: Iwate University
• Principal Investigator: Yamada Miwa 岩手大学, 農学部, 准教授 (90586398)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: グリコール酸 / エチレングリコール / グリオキシル酸 / 酸化酵素 / 微生物合成

Outline of Final Research Achievements

To establish an eco-friendly method for obtaining useful materials from inexpensive raw materials, we focused on a microbial production of glycolic acid from ethylene glycol. We isolated a bacterial strain, Burkholderia sp. AIU 129, that produces an enzyme catalyzing the oxidation of glycolaldehyde into glycolic acid. The enzyme was the first aldehyde oxidase which oxidizes glycolaldehyde and consists of three heterosubunits. Furthermore, we also found Ochrobactrum sp. AIU 033 which produces a novel alcohol oxidase (ALOD) that catalyzes the oxidation of glycolic acid to glyoxylic acid. The ALOD is expected to be useful to produce glyoxylic acid by combing with the pathway for glycolic acid production from ethylene glycol. The cloned ALOD gene was expressed as an active product in recombinant Escherichia col. We succeeded in creating the ALOD mutant which the crude enzyme solution showed 1.2-fold higher activity than that of wild-type ALOD.

Free Research Field

応用微生物学