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Oxalic acid production by citric acid-producing Aspergillus niger overexpressing the oxaloacetate hydrolase gene oahA

  • Biocatalysis
  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

The filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger is used worldwide in the industrial production of citric acid. However, under specific cultivation conditions, citric acid-producing strains of A. niger accumulate oxalic acid as a by-product. Oxalic acid is used as a chelator, detergent, or tanning agent. Here, we sought to develop oxalic acid hyperproducers using A. niger as a host. To generate oxalic acid hyperproducers by metabolic engineering, transformants overexpressing the oahA gene, encoding oxaloacetate hydrolase (OAH; EC 3.7.1.1), were constructed in citric acid-producing A. niger WU-2223L as a host. The oxalic acid production capacity of this strain was examined by cultivation of EOAH-1 under conditions appropriate for oxalic acid production with 30 g/l glucose as a carbon source. Under all the cultivation conditions tested, the amount of oxalic acid produced by EOAH-1, a representative oahA-overexpressing transformant, exceeded that produced by A. niger WU-2223L. A. niger WU-2223L and EOAH-1 produced 15.6 and 28.9 g/l oxalic acid, respectively, during the 12-day cultivation period. The yield of oxalic acid for EOAH-1 was 64.2 % of the maximum theoretical yield. Our method for oxalic acid production gave the highest yield of any study reported to date. Therefore, we succeeded in generating oxalic acid hyperproducers by overexpressing a single gene, i.e., oahA, in citric acid-producing A. niger as a host.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (25450114) and by the Grants for Excellent Graduate Schools (Practical Chemical Wisdom) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, 3-4-1 Ohkubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 169-8555, Japan

    Keiichi Kobayashi, Takasumi Hattori, Yuki Honda & Kohtaro Kirimura

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  1. Keiichi Kobayashi
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  2. Takasumi Hattori
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  3. Yuki Honda
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  4. Kohtaro Kirimura
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Correspondence to Kohtaro Kirimura.

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Kobayashi, K., Hattori, T., Honda, Y. et al. Oxalic acid production by citric acid-producing Aspergillus niger overexpressing the oxaloacetate hydrolase gene oahA . J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 41, 749–756 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-014-1419-2

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