ME11 Keynote Presentation 2 - Hiroyuki Kojima

Amino Acids Production and Metabolic Engineering

Hiroyuki Kojima

Research Institute for Bioscience Products and Fine Chemicals, Ajinomoto Co., Inc., Tokyo, Japan; Amino Science Division, Ajinomoto Co., Inc., Tokyo, Japan

Industrial amino acids production has more than 100 years of history. L-Glutamate was firstly produced for the umami taste substance from hydrolyzed wheat protein. However, this production method was not so appropriate from the view point of equipment and huge environmental burden. Production of low content amino acids in the protein or acid sensitive amino acids such as tryptophan was difficult to produce. Thus, chemical synthesis method was developed for the production of various kinds of amino acids including glutamate. However, most of the amino acids have optical isomer(s) and usually specific isomer, L-amino acid, is required. Separation of specific isomer from racemic mixture required significant production costs.

Around 60 years ago, microbial fermentation production of L-glutamate started after the discovery of L-glutamate producing bacteria in Japan. Promptly after the development of L-glutamate fermentative production method, producing strains of various kinds of amino acids, L-lysine, L-glutamine, L-threonine and so on, have been developed. The development of production technologies also enhanced the expansion of the application of amino acids in many fields such as animal nutritions, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics.  Production technology of amino acids was based on the deepening knowledge of various kinds of research areas; biochemistry, molecular biology, recombinant DNA technology and metabolic engineering. Amino acids production from the view point of metabolic engineering will be reviewed and future expectation to the metabolic engineering will be presented.