A metabolic-based approach to improve xylose utilization for fumaric acid production from acid pretreated wheat bran by Rhizopus oryzae.

In this work, wheat bran (WB) was utilized as feedstock to synthesize fumaric acid by Rhizopus oryzae. Firstly, the pretreatment process of WB by dilute sulfuric acid hydrolysis undertaken at 100°C for 30min offered the best performance for fumaric acid production. Subsequently, through optimizing the seed culture medium, a suitable morphology (0.55mm pellets diameter) of R. oryzae was obtained. Furthermore, a metabolic-based approach was developed to profile the differences of intracellular metabolites concentration of R. oryzae between xylose (the abundant sugar in wheat bran hydrolysate (WBH)) and glucose metabolism. The xylitol, sedoheptulose 7-phosphate, ribulose 5-phosphate, glucose 6-phosphate, proline and serine were responsible for fumaric acid biosynthesis limitation in xylose fermentation. Consequently, regulation strategies were proposed, leading to a 149% increase in titer (up to 15.4g/L). Finally, by combinatorial regulation strategies the highest production was 20.2g/L from WBH, 477% higher than that of initial medium.