Glutamic Acid as a Building Block

1 Production of Chemicals from Glutamic Acid Using Microorganisms 

Plokhov et al. (2000) reported the production of GABA using recombinant E. coli expressing the gadA gene, which encodes GAD. In this study, recombinant E. coli 

Glutaric acid y-Aminobutyric acid 5-Aminoievuiinic acid Poly(y-glutamic acid) Pyroglutaminol Pyroglutamic acid Proiinol Proiine 

FIGURE 17.4 Derivatives of glutamic acid that can be used as possible targets for bio-based productions. From US DOE Report (Werpy and Petersen, 2004). 

FIGURE 17.5 Synthesis of nylon 4 from glutamic acid via GABA and 2-pyrrolidone. 

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This chapter reviews the molecular mechanism and metabolic engineering of glutamic acid production by C. glutamicum and potential use of glutamic acid as a building block for producing several other chemicals. 

Figure 28 A dendrimer-based approach for the design of globular protein mimic using glutamic (Glu) and aspartic (Asp) acids as the building blocks and adamantyl as the core [151].

Folic acid (15) contains 6-methylpterine, p-aminobenzoic add, and (S)-glutamic add as structural building blocks. Fobc acid belongs to the vitamin B complexes group and has been isolated from spinach leaves it is a growth hormone and effective in the treatment of certain types of anemia. It is important for the metabolism of amino acids, proteins, purines, and pyrimidines. 

From 1970, amino acids-based homo- and copolymers were studied for biomedical applications the idea was quite intuitive, because proteins are made of amino acids. However, initial studies showed that most poly(amino acids) could not be employed for biomedical applications because of immunogenicity problems and poor mechanical properties. Only a small number of poly(y-substituted glutamates) possess adequate characteristics to be interesting. In order to improve mechanical and physiological features of these materials, amino acids can be used as monomeric building blocks in polymers that do not have a backbone with the conventional structure which can be found in peptides. These materials are the so called non-peptide amino acids-based polymers or amino-acid-derived polymers with modified backbone , and can be divided into four main categories (Bourke and Kohn, 2003) ... 

Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins upon hydrolysis of plant and animal tissues, the 20 protein amino acids mentioned in Section I will usually be obtained. Amino acids are also found free (referred to as free-pool amino acids) in animal and plant tissues and in the blood of vertebrates and invertebrates. Qualitative and quantitative differences may exist in the free-pool amino acids of different species, and the significance of such variations is obscure. However, amino acid variations in species may be important in studies on the chemotaxon-omy of organisms (Gilbertson and Schmid, 1975). By way of an example of differences in free-pool amino acids in related organisms, the most abundant free-pool amino acids in the rat tapeworm, Hymenolepis diminuta, are alanine and glutamic acid. By contrast, the most abundant free-pool amino acids in tapeworms of elasmobranchs (sharks and rays) are glycine and taurine (von Brand, 1973). It should be remembered, however, that a variety of analytical techniques are used to determine free-pool amino acids, and some of the interspecific variations reported in the literature may actually reflect differences in analytical procedures used. 

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