Acrylic acid (AA) is an important chemical that can be used in the production of a
broad spectrum of products used on a daily basis, such as diapers, coatings paints, adhesives,
textiles, detergents and plastic additives [1]. In addition, this chemical can also be used in
the production of a superabsorbent polymer, which further increases its worldwide demand
and commercial value in the industrial business [2]. However, most of the AA currently
commercialized is produced by the oxidation of propylene or propane [3]. The production
of AA contributes to the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere and relies on the worlds
petroleum reserves, which are not renewable and are in rapid decline [2, 4]. Hence, the need
for the development of innovative, clean and sustainable biological methods for the
production of AA has attracted considerable attention from the scientific community [2, 5,
6].
In the last few years, there has been an effort to optimize the bio-based production of
3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP) by Escherichia coli. In this process, 3-HP is purified and
converted to AA by catalytic dehydration. Despite such efforts, this method is still
energetically demanding and has high production costs, associated with the catalytic process
that takes place in the final step. Hence, the current process for the production of AA is not
ideal [2]. A method that does not require the catalytic dehydration of 3-HP was put forward
to overcome this issue. This method allows producing AA through fermentation by
recombinant E. coli [2, 5].
The aim of this work was to perform the in silico insertion of different alternatives
of the heterologous pathways for AA production in kinetic models of the central carbon
metabolism of E. coli, which will allow to select the best approach to be implemented in
vivo. Five models namely, the Chassagnole [7], the Jaham [8], the Kadir [9], the Peskov [10]
and the Khodayari [11] models, were evaluated to select the one that better complies with
the requirements of this project. The selected model was used to test the different knock-in
strategies.
References
1. Rolf Beerthuis, Gadi Rothenberg, and Raveendran Shiju. Catalytic routes towards acrylic
acid, adipic acid and -caprolactam starting from biorenewables. Green Chemistry,
17(3):13411361, 2015.
2. Hun Su Chu, Jin Ho Ahn, Jiae Yun, In Suk Choi, TaeWook Nam, and Kwang Myung Cho.
Direct fermentation route for the production of acrylic acid. Metabolic Engineering, 32:23
29, 2015.
3. Avelino Corma, Sara Iborra, and Alexandra Velty. Chemical routes for the transformation
of biomass into chemicals. Chemical Reviews, 107(6):24112502, 2007.
4. Rojan John, Madhavan Nampoothiri, and Ashok Pandey. Fermentative production of lactic
acid from biomass: an overview on process developments and future perspectives. Applied
Microbiology and Biotechnology, 74(3):524534, 2007.
5. Wenhua Tong, Ying Xu, Mo Xian, Wei Niu, Jiantao Guo, Huizhou Liu, and Guang Zhao.
Biosynthetic pathway for acrylic acid from glycerol in recombinant Escherichia coli.
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 100(11):49014907, 2016.
6. Zhijie Liu and Tiangang Liu. Production of acrylic acid and propionic acid by constructing
a portion of the 3-hydroxypropionate/4-hydroxybutyrate cycle from Metallosphaera sedula
in Escherichia coli. Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology, 43(12):1659
1670, 2016.
7. Christophe Chassagnole, Naruemol Noisommit-Rizzi, Joachim W. Schmid, Klaus Mauch,
and Matthias Reuss. Dynamic modeling of the central carbon metabolism of Escherichia
coli. Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 79(1): 5373, 2002.
8. Nusrat Jahan, Kazuhiro Maeda, Yu Matsuoka, Yurie Sugimoto, and Hiroyuki Kurata.
Development of an accurate kinetic model for the central carbon metabolism of Escherichia
coli. Microbial Cell Factories, 15(1): 112, 2016.
9. Tuty Kadir, Ahmad Mannan, Andrzej Kierzek, Johnjoe McFadden, and Kazuyuki Shimizu.
Modeling and simulation of the main metabolism in Escherichia coli and its several singlegene
knockout mutants with experimental verification. Microbial Cell Factories, 9(1): 88,
2010.
10. Kirill Peskov, Ekaterina Mogilevskaya, and Oleg Demin. Kinetic modelling of central
carbon metabolism in Escherichia coli. FEBS Journal, 279(18): 33743385, 2012.
11. Ali Khodayari, Ali Zomorrodi, James Liao, and Costas Maranas. A kinetic model of
Escherichia coli core metabolism satisfying multiple sets of mutant flux data. Metabolic
Engineering, 25: 5062, 2014Portuguese
Foundation
for
Science
and
Technology
(FCT)
under
the
scope
of
the
strategic
funding
of
UID/BIO/
04469
/
2019
unit
and
BioTecNorte
operation
(NORTE
-
01
-
0145
-
FEDER
-
000004
)
funded
by
the
European
Regional
Development
Fund
under
the
scope
of
Norte
2020
-
Programa
Operacional
Regional
do
Norteinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio