Tuesday, April 20, 2010
LL Conference Facility (Hilton Clearwater Beach)
D-galacturonic acid is the main component of pectin, a naturally abundant compound. Pectin rich residues accumulate when sugar is extracted from sugar beet or juices are produced from citrus fruits. It is a cheap raw material but currently mainly used as animal feed. Pectin has the potential to be an important raw material for biotechnological conversions to fuels or chemicals. In this presentation we present the different microbial pathways for the catabolism and present different approaches for the metabolic engineering of microbes to convert D-galacturonic acid to useful chemicals.