S66: Metabolic engineering to increase production of malonyl-CoA derived products

As the demand for fuels and chemicals increases, their production from renewable feedstocks by fermentation becomes a more critical means of supplementing or even replacing traditionally petroleum-based products. Many commercial products may be derived from the core metabolic precursor, malonyl-CoA, including fatty acids (and hence long chain alkanes), polyketides including pharmaceuticals, and 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP), a precursor of the industrial monomer acrylic acid. However, metabolic engineering is often required to construct microorganisms with the ability to produce compounds not normally the end-product of metabolism and to redirect metabolic flow towards the desired endpoint. We have engineered a series of platform microorganisms for the production of products from the key metabolite, malonyl-coA. 3-HP, a precursor to acrylic acid has been developed first and has been taken through pilot scale production. Continued optimization of bioprocesses using this core platform will not only enable biological production of acrylic acid but many other products as well, recently including fatty acids.