Succinic acid production from xylose mother liquor by recombinant Escherichia coli strain

Abstract

Succinic acid (1,4-butanedioic acid) is identified as one of important building-block chemicals. Xylose mother liquor is an abundant industrial residue in xylitol biorefining industry. In this study, xylose mother liquor was utilized to produce succinic acid by recombinant Escherichia coli strain SD121, and the response surface methodology was used to optimize the fermentation media. The optimal conditions of succinic acid fermentation were as follows: 82.62 g L⁻¹ total initial sugars, 42.27 g L⁻¹ MgCO₃ and 17.84 g L⁻¹ yeast extract. The maximum production of succinic acid was 52.09 ± 0.21 g L⁻¹ after 84 h with a yield of 0.63 ± 0.03 g g⁻¹ total sugar, approaching the predicted value (53.18 g L⁻¹). It was 1.78-fold of the production of that obtained with the basic medium. This was the first report on succinic acid production from xylose mother liquor by recombinant E. coli strains with media optimization using response surface methodology. This work suggested that the xylose mother liquor could be an alternative substrate for the economical production of succinic acid by recombinant E. coli strains.

Keywords:

• succinic acid
• xylose mother liquor
• response surface methodology
• fermentation
• Escherichia coli

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Professor Clark (Southern Illinois University) for strain DC1515 and Professor Jianmin Xing (Chinese Academy of Sciences) for strain SD121.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 21106191], [grant number 21206175]; Natural Science Foundation Project of CQ CSTC [grant number cstcjjA50002]; and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (project No. CQDXWL-2013-019).