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Maintaining high anaerobic succinic acid productivity by product removal

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Abstract

During dual-phase fermentations using Escherichia coli engineered for succinic acid production, the productivity and viable cell concentration decrease as the concentration of succinic acid increases. The effects of succinic acid on the fermentation kinetics, yield, and cell viability were investigated by resuspending cells in fresh media after selected fermentation times. The cellular succinic acid productivity could be restored, but cell viability continuously decreased throughout the fermentations by up to 80% and subsequently the volumetric productivity was reduced. Omitting complex nutrients in the resuspension media had no significant effect on cellular succinate productivity and yield, although the viable cell concentration and thus the volumetric productivity was reduced by approximately 20%. By resuspending the cells, the amount of succinate produced during a 100-h fermentation was increased by more than 60%. The results demonstrate that by product removal succinic acid productivity can be maintained at high levels for extended periods of time.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the financial support of Norrbottens forskningsråd (The Research Council of Norrbotten) and the Kempe Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Chemical Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, 971 87, Luleå, Sweden

    Christian Andersson, Ekaterina Petrova, Kris Berglund & Ulrika Rova

  2. Departments of Forestry and Chemical Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Kris Berglund

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  1. Christian Andersson
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  2. Ekaterina Petrova
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  3. Kris Berglund
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  4. Ulrika Rova
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Correspondence to Ulrika Rova.

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Andersson, C., Petrova, E., Berglund, K. et al. Maintaining high anaerobic succinic acid productivity by product removal. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 33, 711–718 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-009-0393-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-009-0393-y

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