In situ product recovery as a powerful tool to improve the fermentative production of muconic acid in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Muconic acid has gained interest as a bio-based platform chemical to produce value-added compounds including adipic acid and terephthalic acid. In this study, a fermentation strategy based on in situ product recovery was established to boost process performance and counteract product inhibition. An optimized reactive extraction mixture for muconic acid was developed consisting of 12.5% (v/v) CYTOP 503 in canola oil and showing high extraction capacity as well as biocompatibility. By integrating the reactive extraction into the fermentation at shake flask level, growth and muconic acid titer could be increased by 44% and 18%, respectively. The process was successfully transferred to a fed-batch fermentation in a 10 L bioreactor with a final muconic acid titer of 4.33 g L-1 and maximum productivity of 0.053 g L-1, demonstrating the potential of this strategy to enhance challenging fermentation processes for industrial biochemicals.

Automated summary

In this study, a fermentation strategy with in situ product recovery was developed to improve the production efficiency of muconic acid and overcome product inhibition. By integrating reactive extraction into the fermentation process, bacterial growth and muconic acid titer were increased by 44% and 18% respectively. The strategy was successfully applied in a 10 L bioreactor with a final muconic acid titer of 4.33 g L-1 and a maximum productivity of 0.053 g L-1, demonstrating its potential for enhancing challenging fermentation processes in the industrial biochemical field.