Production of Lactic Acid from 5C lignocellulosic sugars
Description
A Lactobacillus pentosus strain called MAX2 highly efficient in the production of LA from xylose (C5) has been obtained, also significantly increasing the productivity with respect to the parental strain. The strain is capable of efficiently fermenting lignocellulosic sugars even at low pH (acidic environment found in LA production processes) without the need for neutralizing agents.
Since xylose is the second most abundant sugar in lignocellulose, it is interesting to have microorganisms capable of efficiently transforming it into bio-based chemical products such as LA. L. pentosus CECT4023T was evolved to improve its xylose fermentation ability even at acidic pH through adaptive laboratory evolution.
The production of LA from 5C lignocellulosic sugars may replace its production by lactic fermentation from raw materials such as milk sugar (lactose), starch, grape sugar (glucose) or sugarcane (sucrose) mainly using lactic acid bacteria or from sugarcane or cassava which are always more expensive compared to lignocellulosic wastes besides the dilemma of using food feedstocks for bioproducts.
