Rapid assessment of oxygen transfer impact for Corynebacterium glutamicum

Oxygen supply is crucial in industrial application of microbial systems, such as Corynebacterium glutamicum , but oxygen transfer is often neglected in early strain characterizations, typically done under aerobic conditions. In this work, a new procedure for oxygen transfer screening is presented, assessing the impact of maximum oxygen transfer conditions (OTR max ) within microtiter plate-based cultivation for enhanced throughput. Oxygen-dependent growth and productivity were characterized for C. glutamicum ATCC13032 and C. glutamicum DM1933 (lysine producer). Biomass and lysine product yield are affected at OTR max below 14 mmol L −1 h −1 in a standardized batch process, but not by further increase of OTR max above this threshold value indicating a reasonable tradeoff between power input and oxygen transfer capacity OTR max . The described oxygen transfer screening allows comparative determination of metabolic robustness against oxygen transfer limitation and serves identification of potential problems or opportunities later created during scale-up.