442163 Process Optimization to Improve Butyric Acid Production with Clostridium Tyrobutyricum

Monday, November 9, 2015
Exhibit Hall 1 (Salt Palace Convention Center)
Lauren Mathews1, Carson Dietrich2, Michael Leffler3, Whitney Smith2, Chao Ma1 and Margaret Liu1, (1)Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, (2)The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, (3)The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

Butyric acid production by Clostridium tyrobutyricum has drawn a significant amount of attention because it is widely used in food and pharmaceutical industries. Clostridium tyrobutyricum mutant PAK-Em with inactivated ack gene, encoding acetate kinase, was used in fermentations to produce butyric acid from glucose. A fibrous-bed bioreactor (FBB) was used to immobilize and acclimate the PAK-Em cells, which boosted the butyric acid yield to 0.37 g/g at pH 5.0 and 0.45 g/g at pH 6.0.  PAK-Em produced much more butyric acid (14.79 g/L vs. 11.02 g/L at pH 5.0 and 50.11 g/L vs. 20.10 g/L at pH 6.0) than wild type, but had a lower specific growth rate (0.06 h-1 vs. 0.09 h-1 at pH 5.0 and 0.09h-1 vs. 0.12 h-1at pH 6.0) in the FBB. The integration of metabolic engineering and process parameter optimization increased butyric acid production significantly.

Contact information for abstract submission
Lauren Mathews: lmathews2@crimson.ua.edu
The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
The University of Alabama
1418 10th Avenue
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401
Phone: (985)-237-4707

Carson Dietrich:cndietrich@crimson.ua.edu
The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
The University of Alabama
1418 10th Avenue
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401
Phone: (985)-237-4707

Michael Leffler: mjleffler@crimson.ua.edu
The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
The University of Alabama
1418 10th Avenue
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401
Phone: (985)-237-4707

Whitney Smith:wlsmith4@crimson.ua.edu
The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
The University of Alabama
1418 10th Avenue
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401
Phone: (985)-237-4707

Chao Ma: cma3@crimson.ua.edu
The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
The University of Alabama
HM Comer R360
245 7th Avenue
Tuscaloosa, AL 35405
(Phone): 205-292-8115

Margaret Liu: mliu@eng.ua.edu
The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
The University of Alabama
HM Comer R360
245 7th Avenue
Tuscaloosa, AL 35405
(Phone): 205-348-0868


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