Web Alert: Amino acids from microbes for biotechnology: An annotated selection of World Wide Web sites relevant to the topics in microbial biotechnology.

Abstract

https://www.ajinomoto.com/aboutus/amino-acids/how-amino-acids-are-made This website is maintained by a major company in Japan that produces amino acids via microbial fermentation processes. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0734975017301052 This is a review article that focuses on the specificity of the processes used in fermentation to make amino acids via different microbial strains. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-4-431-56520-8.pdf This is a book on microbial amino acid fermentations. It is comprehensive and covers the history, examples of processes, recent advances and future prospects for the field. https://biocyc.org/META/NEW-IMAGE?type=PATHWAY&object=Stickland-Oxidative This page of the MetaCyc database links to reactions that comprise the oxidative branch of the amino acid fermentation metabolism known as the Stickland reactions. https://www.nature.com/articles/ja2017142.pdf?origin=ppub This review article in the Journal of Antibiotics provides a very clear and concise overview of microbial amino acid production. It focuses on the microorganisms, the scale and the economic impacts of these processes. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2018.00683/full While most commercially relevant amino acids are in the L-form, there is increasing evidence of the importance of D-amino acids in the physiology of microorganisms. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-019-0345-2 Detecting specific proteinogenic amino acids electrically is described in this report. The method can provide a new, fast way to sequence proteins. https://www.pnas.org/content/115/20/5093 Amino acids have traditionally been derived on scale via microbes that overproduce specific amino acids that they excrete into fermentation broths. This paper describes the potential to use biomass and specific catalysts to produce a number of α-amino acids. If scalable and economically feasible, these methods could compete with the current microbial fermentation processes used in industry. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21926-5 This study investigated the high level production of L-valine by Corynebacterium glutamicum. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/browse#!/prokaryotes/469/ Corynebacterium glutamicum is the single most used and useful bacterium for producing amino acids. Its genome sequence was first publicly reported in 2003, and currently, dozens of genomes of C. glutamicum strains have been sequenced. Links to the genomes are provided here. https://biocyc.org/CORYNE/organism-summary Metabolic pathways for Corynebacterium glutamicum are provided here. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-39267-3_10 This review article discusses metabolic engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum for enhanced amino acid production. The methods covered in this report range from classical mutagenesis, genetic engineering of single genes and systems biology approaches. https://www.biotechnologynotes.com/amino-acids/industrial-production-of-amino-acids-by-microorganism-and-fermentation/13820 This site provides a good basic overview of the range of amino acid products, the microorganisms used and parameters such as yield. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-feed-amino-acids-market-overview-2021-with-profiles-of-56-companies--industry-guide-containing-contact-details-for-219-companies-301303039.html This site describes the industrial demand for amino acids and the major global players in their production. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214030120300122 This report describes a selection and bio-sensing system to enhance the production of amino acids by Lactococcus lactis.