Glycerol microbial metabolism

Figure 7.1. Mechanism of uptake and initial enzymatic reactions in the microbial metabolism of glycerol (G). Note The gene products GlpF, GlpK, GlpD correspond to a glycerol facilitator protein, glycerol kinase, and glycerol 3-phosphate dehydrogenase, respectively.

Menzel K, Zeng AP, Deckwer WD (1997) High concentration and productivity of PDO from cmtinuoiis fermentation of glycerol by Klebsiella pneumoniae. Enzyme Microbiol Technol 20(82) 86 Nakamura CE, Whited GM (2003) Metabolic engineering for the microbial production of... 

These techniques, in which mutant strains are selected for their ability to overproduce metabolites, represent an important advance in the industrial development of microbial synthesis. Their use to improve amino-acid manufacture was not new they had already been used to improve the titres of antibiotics but the nature of the changes introduced into the metabolism of the mutated organisms could not be interpreted in the way that was possible for amino-acid synthesis. What is, perhaps, also apparent is that the technique of interfering with the metabolic pathway between aspartate and lysine is, in principle, no different from the use of sulphite to inhibit the synthesis of ethanol (section 6.2.1.2). In one case C. glutamicum overproduces lysine, while in the other S. cerevisiae will produce glycerol. 

Tokuyama, K., Ohno, S., Yoshikawa, K., Hirasawa, T., Tanaka, S., Furusawa, C., Shimizu, H., 2014. Increased 3-hydroxypropionic acid production from glycerol, by modification of central metabolism in Escherichia coli. Microbial CeU Factories 13,64. http //dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-2859-13-64. 

---