Microbial succinic acid production

Beauprez, J.J., De Mey, M., and Soetaert, W.K. (2010) Microbial succinic acid production natural versus metabolic engineered producers. Process Biochem., 45, 1103-1114. 

Microbial Succinic Acid Production Using Different Bacteria Species... 

Succinic acid is a potential platform chemical that is expected to be commercialised in a few years. Although the production capacity of petrochemically derived succinic acid is on the scale of 15 000 tonnes per year (Zeikus etal., 1999), the production capacity of succinic acid derivatives is over 270 000 tonnes per year (Willke and Vorlop, 2004). Fermentative production of succinic acid could offer a viable route to bulk chemical production. Figure 4.4 presents potential routes for chemical production from succinic acid (McKinlay et al., 2007). Another advantage of succinic acid microbial production is the simultaneous requirement for CO2 consumption, which reduces the emission of the most important greenhouse gas and makes fermentative succinic acid production a process of significantly low environmental impact. 

Agarwal, L., Isar, J., Meghwanshi, G.K., Saxena, R.K., 2007. Influence of environmental and nutritional factors on succinic acid production and enzymes of reverse tricarboxylic acid cycle from Enterococcus flavescens. Enzyme and Microbial Technology 40 (4), 629-636. 

Hendrik, G.B., Willie, N., 2014. Succinic acid production with Actinobadllus succinogenes rate and yield analysis of chemostat and biofilm cultures. Brink and Nicol Microbial Cell Factories 13, 111. 

Diacids. The microbial generation of mahc, fumaric, and succinic acid essentially imphes Krebs cycle pathway engineering of biocatalytic organisms to overproduce oxaloacetate as the primary four-carbon diacid that subsequently undergoes reduction and dehydration processes (Scheme 2.9). The use of these four-carbon diacids as intermediate chemicals and the state of their desirable microbial production is briefly outlined. 

It has been proposed that the ruminal microbial ecosystem be manipulated to improve the efficiency of converting feeds to products consumable by humans. In so doing, the organic acids may replace antibiotics and be added to feed for ruminants. Fortunately, application in ruminants is less extensive than in other farm animals and organic acids such as aspartate, citric acid, succinic acid, or pyruvic acid have been investigated and proposed as potential agents for use in ruminants. The advantages of these substances in the rumen are described as (Castillo et al., 2004) ... 

Genetically engineered E. coll has been used to convert glucose from corn into succinic acid (20-50 g/L).211 Succinic acid can be converted, in turn, by known methods into 1,4-butanediol, tetrahydrofuran, and /V-methylpyrrolidone, all of which are valuable commercial chemicals. The process for succinic acid is said to be 20-50% cheaper than other routes. A full-scale plant is planned. Glycolic acid can be oxidized to glyoxylic acid microbially in 85% yield.212 The catalyst could be recovered and reused 30 times. The product was used to prepare 7V-(phospho-nomethyl)glycine (9.22) (an herbicide known as gly-phosate). 

Succinic acid currently is manufactured by chemical processes (1). Many attempts have been made to develop a fermentation process for the production of succinic acid from renewable feedstocks such as corn-derived glucose. A number of patents have been issued on the microbial production of succinic acid (4-7). However, none of these has been applied toward the commercial production of succinic acid. 

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