[P007] Poster

12:10 PM - 1:00 PM JST(3:10 AM - 4:00 AM UTC)

[P04-451] Microbial De Novo Synthesis of Benzyl Acetate from Glucose

○Kyeong Rok Choi¹, Zi Wei Luo¹, Gi Bae Kim¹, Hanwen Xu¹, Sang Yup Lee¹ (1. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Korea))

Keywords:

Benzyl acetate,Delayed co-culture,Two-phase extractive fermentation,De novo biosynthesis,Techno-economic analysis

Benzyl acetate is a high-value aromatic ester compound with diverse applications in the flavor and fragrance industries. However, conventional synthesis of benzyl acetate mostly relies on inefficient extraction from flowers, such as jasmine and ylang-ylang, and chemical/enzymatic processes that depend on non-renewable substrates. Here we report sustainable strategies for the production of benzyl acetate from glucose using metabolically engineered Escherichia coli strains. We designed synthetic metabolic pathways that are dependent or independent of benzoic acid. These synthetic pathways were introduced to either upstream/downstream strain pairs or single, integrated strains. After optimization of two-phase extractive fed-batch fermentation process, 2,238.3 ± 171.9 mg/L of benzyl acetate could be produced from glucose in 108 h (or 2,204.0 ± 192.2 mg/L in 96 h) through a delayed co-culture of an upstream strain that converts glucose to benzoic acid and a downstream strain that transforms benzoic acid into benzyl acetate. In addition, the economic competitiveness of the microbial process for sustainable production of benzyl acetate was assessed by techno-economic analysis.