Prospecting Biochemical Pathways to Implement Microbe-Based Production of the New-to-Nature Platform Chemical Levulinic Acid
Ana Vila-Santa, M. Ahsanul Islam, Frederico Castelo Ferreira, Kristala L. J. Prather, Nuno P. Mira
Abstract
. Out of the hundreds of combinations screened, five pathways were selected as best candidates on the basis of the availability of substrates and of candidate enzymes to catalyze the synthetic steps (that is, those steps that involve conversions not previously described). Genome-scale metabolic modeling was used to assess the performance of these pathways in the two selected hosts and to anticipate possible bottlenecks. Not only does the herein described approach offer a platform for the future implementation of the microbial production of levulinic acid but also it provides an organized research strategy that can be used as a framework for the implementation of other new-to-nature biosynthetic pathways for the production of value-added chemicals, thus fostering the emerging field of synthetic industrial microbiotechnology.