Page 76 - Plastics News January 2018

teChnoLogy

One-step production of aromatic polyesters by E. coli strains

ystems metabolic engineers from the Korea Advanced published in Nature Communication. Conventionally,
SInstitute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have aromatic polyesters boast solid strength and heat
defined a novel strategy for microbial aromatic polyesters stability so that there has been a great deal of interest
production fused with synthetic biology from renewable in fermentative production of aromatic polyesters
from renewable non-food biomass, but without
biomass. The team of Distinguished Professor Sang Yup success. However, aromatic polyesters are only made
Lee of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular by feeding the cells with corresponding aromatic
Engineering produced aromatic polyesters from Escherichia monomers as substrates, and have not been produced
coli (E. coli) strains by applying microbial fermentation, by direct fermentation from renewable feedstock
carbohydrates such as glucose. To address this issue,
the team prescribed the detailed procedure for
aromatic polyester production through identifying CoA-
transferase that activates phenylalkanoates into their
corresponding CoA derivatives. In this process, researchers
employed metabolic engineering of E. coli to produce
phenylalkanoates from glucose based on genome-scale
metabolic flux analysis. In particular, the KAIST team
made a modulation of gene expression to produce various
aromatic polyesters having different monomer fractions.
The research team successfully produced aromatic
polyesters, a non-natural polymer using the strategy that
combines systems metabolic engineering and synthetic
employing direct microbial fermentation from renewable biology. They succeeded in biosynthesis of various kinds
feedstock carbohydrates. of aromatic polyesters through the system, thus proving
the technical excellence of the environmentally friendly
This is the first report to determine a platform strain of
engineered E. coli capable of producing environmentally biosynthetic system of this research. Furthermore, his
friendly aromatic polyesters. This engineered E. coli strain, team also proved the potential of expanding the range
if desired, has the potential to be used as a platform of aromatic polyesters from renewable resources,
strain capable of producing various high-valued aromatic which is expected to play an important role in the
polyesters from renewable biomass. This research was bio-plastic industry.

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