Microbial production of D-glyceric acid and its application

Much attention has been paid to biorefineries, which enable the production of biofuels as well as building-block chemicals from biomass. Among such renewable resources, glycerol is widely available and is thought to be highly utilizable. In the oleochemical industrial fields and the process of producing biodiesel fuel from plant oils, glycerol can be obtained at approximately 10 wt% as a by-product in the transesterification of triglycerides. The total amount of glycerol produced worldwide is estimated to be more than a million tons a year, resulting in a surplus of glycerol. This indicates that glycerol is an attractive feedstock for producing useful chemicals.

Recently, we have developed a technique to biotechnologically produce D-glyceric acid (D-GA) from glycerol with a yield of 136 g/L in 6-d fermentation. Therefore, applications of not only D-GA but also D-GA derivatives should be developed to expand commercial production and application of D-GA. Here, we report the microbial production of D-GA from raw glycerol and the functional evaluation of promising D-GA derivatives, such as a-glucosylglycerate (anionic compatible solute), mono/diacyl glyceric acids (green surfactants), and GA-based polymers (modifier of bio-based polymers).