Engineering Escherichia coli to overproduce cadaverine

Abstract

Cadaverine (1,5-diaminopentane) is a five-carbon diamine that can be used forsustainable polymer production. Microbial production of cadaverine from renewablefeedstock is a promising and sustainable alternative to the conventional petroleumbasedchemical synthesis. Herein, we report a metabolically engineered Escherichia colistrain capable of overproducing cadaverine from glucose in minimal salts medium. Withthe pathways that lead to cadaverine degradation deleted, the final engineered strainproduced 9.61 g/L of cadaverine with a productivity of 0.32 g/L/h by fed-batchfermentation. [This work was supported by the Technology Development Program toSolve Climate Changes on Systems Metabolic Engineering for Biorefineries from theMinistry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) through the National ResearchFoundation (NRF) of Korea.]