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Enzymatic and whole-cell synthesis of lactate-containing polyesters: toward the complete biological production of polylactate

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Abstract

The importance of polylactic acid, a representative bio-based polyester, has been established on a worldwide scale in response to emerging global environmental problems such as green house gas emission and limited petroleum consumption. The current methods for generating this bio-based polymer involve biological synthesis and lactic acid (LA) fermentation, followed by chemical ring-opening polymerization. Among the research community working on polyhydroxyalkanoate polyesters, the prospect of direct biological synthesis of LA into a polymeric form is very attractive from the academic and industrial perspectives. In 2008, this challenge was met for the first time by the discovery of an “LA-polymerizing enzyme”. Using this novel enzyme, the metabolic engineering approach outlined here provided an entirely new, single organism generation of the polymer. This is a major breakthrough in the field. In this review, we provide an overview of the whole-cell synthesis of LA-containing polyesters in comparison with conventional lipase-catalyzed polymer synthesis in terms of both the concepts and strategies of their synthetic processes.

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Acknowledgment

We would like to sincerely thank Prof. A. Steinbüchel for giving us a good opportunity to prepare this Mini-Review.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biotechnology and Macromolecular Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University, N13W8, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060-8628, Japan

    Ken’ichiro Matsumoto & Seiichi Taguchi

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  1. Ken’ichiro Matsumoto
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  2. Seiichi Taguchi
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Correspondence to Seiichi Taguchi.

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Matsumoto, K., Taguchi, S. Enzymatic and whole-cell synthesis of lactate-containing polyesters: toward the complete biological production of polylactate. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 85, 921–932 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-009-2374-0

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