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l(+)-Lactic acid production from non-food carbohydrates by thermotolerant Bacillus coagulans

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

Lactic acid is used as an additive in foods, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics, and is also an industrial chemical. Optically pure lactic acid is increasingly used as a renewable bio-based product to replace petroleum-based plastics. However, current production of lactic acid depends on carbohydrate feedstocks that have alternate uses as foods. The use of non-food feedstocks by current commercial biocatalysts is limited by inefficient pathways for pentose utilization. B. coagulans strain 36D1 is a thermotolerant bacterium that can grow and efficiently ferment pentoses using the pentose-phosphate pathway and all other sugar constituents of lignocellulosic biomass at 50°C and pH 5.0, conditions that also favor simultaneous enzymatic saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of cellulose. Using this bacterial biocatalyst, high levels (150–180 g l−1) of lactic acid were produced from xylose and glucose with minimal by-products in mineral salts medium. In a fed-batch SSF of crystalline cellulose with fungal enzymes and B. coagulans, lactic acid titer was 80 g l−1 and the yield was close to 80%. These results demonstrate that B. coagulans can effectively ferment non-food carbohydrates from lignocellulose to l(+)-lactic acid at sufficient concentrations for commercial application. The high temperature fermentation of pentoses and hexoses to lactic acid by B. coagulans has these additional advantages: reduction in cellulase loading in SSF of cellulose with a decrease in enzyme cost in the process and a reduction in contamination of large-scale fermentations.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported in part by a grant from the Department of Energy (DE-FG36-04GO14019), the State of Florida, University of Florida Agricultural Experiment Station and the Florida Energy Systems Consortium.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, University of Florida, Box 110700, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Mark S. Ou, Lonnie O. Ingram & K. T. Shanmugam

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  1. Mark S. Ou
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  2. Lonnie O. Ingram
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  3. K. T. Shanmugam
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Correspondence to K. T. Shanmugam.

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This article is based on a presentation at the 32nd Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals.

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Ou, M.S., Ingram, L.O. & Shanmugam, K.T. l(+)-Lactic acid production from non-food carbohydrates by thermotolerant Bacillus coagulans. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 38, 599–605 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-010-0796-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-010-0796-4

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