Succinate production by metabolically engineered Escherichia coli using sugarcane bagasse hydrolysate as the carbon source

► Enhancement of ATP supply increased succinate production in Escherichia coli BA204. ► Engineered E. coli was constructed for sugarcane bagasse hydrolysate utilization. ► Fermentation of sugarcane bagasse hydrolysate to produce succinate was studied. Efficient biosynthesis of succinate from a renewable biomass resource by engineered Escherichia coli is reported in this paper. Fermentation of sugarcane bagasse hydrolysate by engineered E. coli BA204, a pflB, ldhA, and ppc deletion strain overexpressing the ATP-forming phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase from Bacillus subtilis 168, produced a final succinate concentration of 15.85gL−1 with a high yield of 0.89gL−1 total sugar under anaerobic conditions. During dual-phase fermentations, initial aerobic growth facilitated subsequent anaerobic succinate production, with a final succinate concentration of 18.88gL−1 and a yield of 0.96gg−1 total sugar after 24h of anaerobic fermentation. The high succinate yield from sugarcane bagasse hydrolysate demonstrated a great potential application of renewable biomass as a feedstock for the economical production of succinate using metabolically engineered E. coli.