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The aromatic amino acid l-phenylalanine is one of the building blocks for the dipeptide sweetener α-aspartame. Considerable progress has been made in recent years towards the development of microbial and enzymatic processes for l-phenylalanine production. Biosynthesis of this aromatic amino acid occurs via a complex pathway and is carefully controlled. Therefore, an extensive program for strain construction...
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Optically pure α-amino acids are of increasing industrial importance as chiral building blocks for the synthesis of food ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and agrochemicals. Highly stereoselective enzymatic processes have been developed to obtain either d- or l-α-amino acids from d,l-5-monosubstituted hydantoin derivatives. In contrast to other processes catalyzed by hydrolytic enzymes, 100% of the racemic...
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A wide variety of different types of microorganisms are known to produce intracellular energy and carbon storage products which have been generally described as being poly(β-hydroxybutyrate), PHB, but which are, more often than not, copolymers containing different alkyl groups at the β-position. Hence, PHB belongs to the family of poly(β-hydroxyalkanoates), PHA, all of which are usually formed as...
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Glycerol is traditionally produced as a by-product of soap and fatty acids industries. The demand for glycerol has always exceeded the supply from these industries so the excess demand has been met by chemical synthesis from propylene for the last several decades. Though glycerol production has a long history (dating back to World War I) of being produced via a biochemical route, yet it is not sufficiently...
