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Recent advances in the biotechnological production of microbial poly(ɛ-l-lysine) and understanding of its biosynthetic mechanism

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Abstract

Poly(ɛ-l-lysine) (ɛ-PL) is an unusual biopolymer composed of l-lysine connected between α-carboxyl and ɛ-amino groups. It has been used as a preservative in food and cosmetics industries, drug carrier in medicines, and gene carrier in gene therapy. Modern biotechnology has significantly improved the synthetic efficiency of this novel homopoly(amino acid) on an industrial scale and has expanded its industrial applications. In the latest years, studies have focused on the biotechnological production and understanding the biosynthetic mechanism of microbial ɛ-PL. Herein, this review focuses on the current trends and future perspectives of microbial ɛ-PL. Information on the screening of ɛ-PL-producing strains, fermentative production of ɛ-PL, breeding of high-ɛ-PL-producing strains, genomic data of ɛ-PL-producing strains, biosynthetic mechanism of microbial ɛ-PL, and the control of molecular weight of microbial ɛ-PL is included. This review will contribute to the development of this novel homopoly(amino acid) and serve as a basis of studies on other biopolymers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, Nanjing, 211816, China

    Zhaoxian Xu, Zheng Xu, Xiaohai Feng, Delei Xu & Hong Xu

  2. College of Food Science and Light Industry, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211816, China

    Zhaoxian Xu, Zheng Xu, Xiaohai Feng, Delei Xu & Hong Xu

  3. Nanjing Shineking Biological Technology Company, Nanjing, 210000, China

    Jinfeng Liang

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  1. Zhaoxian Xu
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  2. Zheng Xu
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  3. Xiaohai Feng
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  4. Delei Xu
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  5. Jinfeng Liang
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  6. Hong Xu
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Correspondence to Hong Xu.

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This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (No. 21476112), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20140933), the State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering (ZK201403), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (No. 20113221130001), the Key Project of Science and Technology Project of Fujian Province (No. 2014Y0015), and the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863) (No. 2015AA020951).

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Zhaoxian Xu and Zheng Xu had equal contributions to this work.

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Xu, Z., Xu, Z., Feng, X. et al. Recent advances in the biotechnological production of microbial poly(ɛ-l-lysine) and understanding of its biosynthetic mechanism. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 100, 6619–6630 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-016-7677-3

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