Improvement of the production efficiency of L-(+)-tartaric acid by heterogeneous whole-cell bioconversion.

An Escherichia coli-engineered bacterium with cis-epoxysuccinate hydrolase (ESH) activity was used to catalyze the stereospecific hydrolysis of cis-epoxysuccinic acid to L-(+)-tartaric acid. The effect of the substrate composition on the production efficiency of L-(+)-tartaric acid was investigated. Based on the sodium-type homogeneous substrate system, a heterogeneous substrate system, composed of 1.2 M sodium-type substrate and 1.8 M calcium-type substrate, was designed to improve ESH catalytic efficiency. After process optimization, a catalytic efficiency of 9.37 × 10(-3) g U(-1) h(-1) was obtained with fed-batch mode in the heterogeneous substrate system, about a twofold increase compared to the traditional bioconversion process with Nocardia tartaricans cells. The scale-up tests were carried out in a 15-m(3) stirred tank reactor, which indicated that the heterogeneous substrate system had great application prospect for the L-(+)-tartaric acid industrial production.