Metabolic engineering of the L-phenylalanine pathway in Escherichia coli for the production of S- or R-mandelic acid

摘要

BackgroundMandelic acid (MA), an important component in pharmaceutical syntheses, is currently produced exclusively via petrochemical processes. Growing concerns over the environment and fossil energy costs have inspired a quest to develop alternative routes to MA using renewable resources. Herein we report the first direct route to optically pure MA from glucose via genetic modification of the L-phenylalanine pathway in E. coli.