Direct fermentation route for the production of acrylic acid

There have been growing concerns regarding the limited fossil resources and global climate changes resulting from modern civilization. Currently, finding renewable alternatives to conventional petrochemical processes has become one of the major focus areas of the global chemical industry sector. Since over 4.2 million tons of acrylic acid (AA) is annually employed for the manufacture of various products via petrochemical processes, this chemical has been the target of efforts to replace the petrochemical route by ecofriendly processes. However, there has been limited success in developing an approach combining the biological production of 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP) and its chemical conversion to AA. Here, we report the first direct fermentative route for producing 0.12 g/L of AA from glucose via 3-HP, 3-HP-CoA, and Acryloyl-CoA, leading to a strain of Escherichia coli capable of directly producing acrylic acid. This route was developed through extensive screening of key enzymes and designing a novel metabolic pathway for AA.