Abstract
Treatment of solid and liquid tobacco wastes with high nicotine content remains a longstanding challenge. Here, we explored an environmentally friendly approach to replace tobacco waste disposal with resource recovery by genetically engineering Pseudomonas putida. The biosynthesis of 3-succinoyl-pyridine (SP), a precursor in the production of hypotensive agents, from the tobacco waste was developed using whole cells of the engineered Pseudomonas strain, S16dspm. Under optimal conditions in fed-batch biotransformation, the final concentrations of product SP reached 9.8 g/L and 8.9 g/L from aqueous nicotine solution and crude suspension of the tobacco waste, respectively. In addition, the crystal compound SP produced from aqueous nicotine of the tobacco waste in batch biotransformation was of high purity and its isolation yield on nicotine was 54.2%. This study shows a promising route for processing environmental wastes as raw materials in order to produce valuable compounds.
Highlights
Used to dispose of tobacco wastes[11]
The nicotine content in these tobacco leaves was calculated as a percentage, yielding results of 3.09% ± 0.02% (w/w) (Table 1)
This value was used to determine the total amount of nicotine in the tobacco leaves
Summary
Used to dispose of tobacco wastes[11]. Replacing waste disposal with resource recovery has been viewed as a potential environment-friendly and resource-saving future possibility[12]. We expected to introduce a promising “green” method of reusing and reducing the toxicity of tobacco wastes to efficiently synthesize SP using genetically engineering Pseudomonas putida. This SP production could be initiated with aqueous nicotine solution extracted from the low-grade tobacco leaves and even begun directly with crude suspension of tobacco leaf powder. This green strategy makes it possible to convert nicotine from tobacco wastes with high nicotine content into commercially valuable compounds. Sample No Mass of tobacco powder (g) Nicotine content of tobacco extraction (g/L) Nicotine content of tobacco leaves (%) Average content of nicotine in tobacco leaves (%)
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