Summary
High resolution 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has been employed to determine the chemical composition of the unknown major products in a sucrose or fructose plus glucose fermentation to ethanol by the bacterium Zymmonas mobilis. When grown on these sugars Z.mobilis was found to produce significant amounts of sorbitol, up to 43 g·l-1 for strain ZM31 when grown on 250 g·l-1 sucrose.
The production of sorbitol and decrease of glucose, fructose, or sucrose was followed throughout batch fermentations by NMR and HPLC. Sorbitol was shown to be derived only from fructose by [14C]-feeding experiments. Additionally 31P NMR spectroscopy was utilized to determine the concentrations of both glucose 6-phosphate and fructose 6-phosphate relative to their respective concentrations in Z.mobilis cells fermenting glucose or fructose alone.
It is suggested that free glucose inside the cell inhibits fructokinase. Free intracellular fructose may then be reduced to sorbitol via a dehydrogenase type enzyme. Attempts to grow Z.mobilis on sorbitol were unsuccessful, as were experiments to induce growth via mutagenesis.
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This work was supported in part by the National Energy Research, Development and Demonstration Council of Australia
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Barrow, K.D., Collins, J.G., Leight, D.A. et al. Sorbitol production by Zymomonas mobilis . Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 20, 225–232 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00250630
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00250630