The Trough

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Can amino acid production become more sustainable?

May 16, 2023
By The Trough


Amino acid production today is by far mostly done for feeding livestock for animal protein production or as a direct food additive. Nowadays, amino acid production relies mostly on fermentation of sugars, and the amino acid market for 2022 is estimated to reach ten million tons with over $13 billion USD market value. However, to make amino acid production more sustainable and ecologically viable, alternative resources and waste streams have to be considered. To contribute to a sustainable future vision, here we show a synthetic methanol alanine pathway (MAP) as a cell-free enzymatic cascade. The pathway consists of nine enzymes with an intrinsic cofactor recycling system and produces L-alanine from methanol with a maximum of 90% theoretical yield. Due to the increasing possibilities of sustainably producing methanol from CO2, this study paves the way to C1 building-block-based amino acid synthesis at reduced environmental burden. | READ MORE


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