The chemical industry is based on platform chemicals derived mainly from fossil feedstocks. As the industry adopts renewable feedstocks, a new set of platform chemicals will emerge. One such chemical having interesting properties and potential applications is 3-hydroxypropanoic acid (3-HP). A promising large-volume application for 3-HP is in the production of acrylic acid, a component in acrylic-based paints and superabsorbent polymers. This and other applications have not yet been fully developed, however, due to a lack of large-scale availability of 3-HP. Because 3-HP can be made at 100% stoichiometric yield from glucose, microbial fermentation is an attractive technology for 3-HP production. We have developed several microbial routes to 3-HP from carbohydrates using metabolic engineering and other tools of biotechnology, and have implemented them in an Escherichia coli host. This talk will discuss the heterologous gene functions that comprise the 3-HP biosynthetic pathways and host-encoded functions that contribute to pathway performance.

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