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Enhanced D-lactic acid production from renewable resources using engineered Lactobacillus plantarum

  • Applied genetics and molecular biotechnology
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Abstract

D-lactic acid is used as a monomer in the production of poly-D-lactic acid (PDLA), which is used to form heat-resistant stereocomplex poly-lactic acid. To produce cost-effective D-lactic acid by using all sugars derived from biomass efficiently, xylose-assimilating genes encoding xylose isomerase and xylulokinase were cloned into an L-lactate-deficient strain, Lactobacillus plantarum. The resulting recombinant strain, namely L. plantarum NCIMB 8826 ∆ldhL1-pLEM-xylAB, was able to produce D-lactic acid (at optical purity >99 %) from xylose at a yield of 0.53 g g−1. Simultaneous utilization of glucose and xylose to produce D-lactic acid was also achieved by this strain, and 47.2 g L−1 of D-lactic acid was produced from 37.5 g L−1 glucose and 19.7 g L−1 xylose. Corn stover and soybean meal extract (SBME) were evaluated as cost-effective medium components for D-lactic acid production. Optimization of medium composition using response surface methodology resulted in 30 % reduction in enzyme loading and 70 % reduction in peptone concentration. In addition, we successfully demonstrated D-lactic acid fermentation from corn stover and SBME in a fed-batch fermentation, which yielded 61.4 g L−1 D-lactic acid with an overall yield of 0.77 g g−1. All these approaches are geared to attaining high D-lactic acid production from biomass sugars to produce low-cost, highly thermostable biodegradable plastics.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr. Serror for donating the pLEM415 plasmid. The authors also appreciate Novozymes Inc. for donating enzymes. This work was supported by the Consortium for Plant Biotechnology Research (CPBR) and the Gary and Betty Lortscher Endowment. This is contribution no. 15-350-J from the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

Ethical statement

No human subject or animal research was involved in this study. Further, no endangered or protected species were used in the study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bioprocessing and Renewable Energy Laboratory, Department of Grain Science and Industry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

    Yixing Zhang & Praveen V. Vadlani

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

    Praveen V. Vadlani

  3. Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

    Amit Kumar & Philip R. Hardwidge

  4. Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

    Revathi Govind

  5. Department of Chemical Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokkodaicho, Nada, Kobe, 657-8501, Japan

    Tsutomu Tanaka & Akihiko Kondo

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  1. Yixing Zhang
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  2. Praveen V. Vadlani
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  3. Amit Kumar
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  4. Philip R. Hardwidge
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  5. Revathi Govind
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  6. Tsutomu Tanaka
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  7. Akihiko Kondo
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Correspondence to Yixing Zhang.

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Zhang, Y., Vadlani, P.V., Kumar, A. et al. Enhanced D-lactic acid production from renewable resources using engineered Lactobacillus plantarum . Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 100, 279–288 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-7016-0

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