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Study of Metabolic Profile of Rhizopus oryzae to Enhance Fumaric Acid Production Under Low pH Condition

Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology volume 177, pages 1508–1519 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

Ensuring a suitable pH is a major problem in industrial organic acid fermentation. To circumvent this problem, we used a metabolic profiling approach to analyze metabolite changes in Rhizopus oryzae under different pH conditions. A correlation between fumaric acid production and intracellular metabolic characteristics of R. oryzae was revealed by principal component analysis. The results showed that to help cell survival in the presence of low pH, R. oryzae altered amino acid and fatty acid metabolism and promoted sugar or sugar alcohol synthesis, corresponding with a suppressing of energy metabolism, phenylalanine, and tyrosine synthesis and finally resulting in the low performance of fumaric acid production. Based on this observation, 1 % linoleic acid was added to the culture medium in pH 3.0 to decrease the carbon demand for cell survival, and the fumaric acid titer was enhanced by 39.7 % compared with the control (pH 3.0 without linoleic acid addition), reaching 18.3 g/L after 84 h of fermentation. These findings provide new insights into the mechanism by which R. oryzae responds to acidic stress and would be helpful for the development of efficient strategies for fumaric acid production at low pH.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21106065), the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CB733605), National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (No. 21225626), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No.2011AA02A206), and the undergraduates innovating experimentation project from Nanjing Tech University (No. 2015 DC043).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. State Key Laboratory of Material-oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, No. 30 Puzhu Road, Nanjing, 211816, China

      Ying Liu, Qing Xu, Chunwei Lv, Caixia Yan, Shuang Li, Ling Jiang, He Huang & Pingkai Ouyang

    2. Science and Technology Development Department, Sinopec Corporation, No. 22 Chaoyangmen North Street, Changyang District, Beijing, 100728, China

      Ying Liu

    3. Department of Biological Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

      Qing Xu

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    1. Ying Liu
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    2. Qing Xu
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    3. Chunwei Lv
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    4. Caixia Yan
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    7. He Huang
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    8. Pingkai Ouyang
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    Correspondence to He Huang.

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    Liu, Y., Xu, Q., Lv, C. et al. Study of Metabolic Profile of Rhizopus oryzae to Enhance Fumaric Acid Production Under Low pH Condition. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 177, 1508–1519 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-015-1831-8

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-015-1831-8

    Keywords

    • Rhizopus oryzae
    • Fumaric acid
    • Acidic stress
    • Metabolic profile