Improvement of Biotechnological Production of Glyceric Acid from Glycerol and Application of Glyceric Acid to Functional Chemicals

Abstract

A global shift from petroleum-based materials to bio-based ones in chemical and energy industries leads to a significant increase in the use of plant oils and animal fats as raw materials for chemical products. Much attention has then been paid to the use of surplus raw glycerol by-produced in the industries. To address this matter, a biotechnological method to produce glyceric acid (GA) from glycerol was developed. However, for the practical use of GA, further applications of GA as well as improvement of the GA production process should be developed. This review summarizes recent research topics of application of GA to functional chemicals and improvement of the GA production process. For the GA application, GA calcium was found to activate ethanol-dosed gastric cells. It was also found that performace of monoacyl GA is superior to that of practical surfactants and that glucosyl GA functions as biomolecular protectants. As for the GA production process, effect of methanol in the raw glycerol derived from BDF industries on the GA production was investigated. By genomic, transcriptomic and enzymatic analyses, methanol was found to directly inhibit the enzymatic oxidation of glycerol. Further improvement of the process was performed by mutagenesis of GA-producing strain.