Microbial production of amino acids and derived chemicals: Synthetic biology approaches to strain development

Amino acids are produced at the multi-million-ton-scale with fermentative production of L-glutamate and L-lysine alone being estimated to amount to more than five million tons in the year 2013. Metabolic engineering constantly improves productivities of amino acid producing strains, mainly Corynebacterium glutamicum and Escherichia coli strains. Classical mutagenesis and screening have been accelerated by combination with intracellular metabolite sensing. Synthetic biology approaches have allowed access to new carbon sources to realize a flexible feedstock concept. Moreover, new pathways for amino acid production as well as fermentative production of non-native compounds derived from amino acids or their metabolic precursors were developed. These include dipeptides, alpha,omega-diamines, alpha,omega-diacids, keto acids, acetylated amino acids and omega-amino acids.