Enhanced production of glutaric acid by biocatalyst-recycled bioconversion process integrated with in situ product recovery by adsorption

Product inhibition caused by organic acids is a serious issue in establishing economical biochemical production systems. Herein, for enhanced production of glutaric acid by overcoming product inhibition triggered by glutaric acid, a whole-cell bioconversion system equipped with biocatalyst recycling process and in situ product recovery by adsorption was developed successfully. From the whole-cell bioconversion reaction, we found that both dissociated and undissociated forms of glutaric acid acted as an inhibitor in the whole-cell bioconversion reaction, wherein bioconversion was hindered beyond 200 mM glutaric acid regardless of reaction pH. Therefore, as the promising solution for the inhibition issue by glutaric acid, the biocatalyst-recycled bioconversion process integrated with in situ product recovery by adsorption was introduced in the whole-cell bioconversion. As a result, 592 mM glutaric acid was produced from 1000 mM 5-aminovaleric acid with 59.2% conversion. We believe that our system will be a promising candidate for economically producing organic acids with high titer.