Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-018-1977-1 RESEARCH PAPER Enhanced production of succinic acid from methanol–organosolv pretreated Strophanthus preussii by recombinant Escherichia coli Ayobami Matthew Olajuyin 1,2  · Maohua Yang 1  · Tingzhen Mu 1,2  · Jiangnan Tian 1,2  · Anders Thygesen 3,4  · Omolola Abidemi Adesanoye 5  · Oluwatosin Adekunle Adaramoye 5  · Andong Song 6  · Jianmin Xing 1,2 Received: 25 April 2018 / Accepted: 29 June 2018 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract A biorefnery process for high yield production of succinic acid from biomass sugars was investigated using recombinant Escherichia coli. The major problem been addressed is utilization of waste biomass for the production of succinic acid using metabolic engineering strategy. Here, methanol extract of Strophanthus preussii was used for fermentation. The process parameters were optimized. Glucose (9 g/L), galactose (4 g/L), xylose (6 g/L) and arabinose (0.5 g/L) were the major sugars present in the methanol extract of S. preussii. E. coli K3OS with overexpression of soluble nucleotide pyridine transhydro- genase sthA and mutation of lactate dehydrogenase A (ldhA), phosphotransacetylase acetate kinase A (pta-ackA), pyruvate formate lyase B (pfB), pyruvate oxidase B (poxB), produced a fnal succinic acid concentration of 14.40 g/L and yield of 1.10 mol/mol total sugars after 72 h dual-phase fermentation in M9 medium. Here, we show that the maximum theoretical yield using methanol extracts of S. preussii was 64%. Hence, methanol extract of S. preussii could be used for the production of biochemicals such as succinate, malate and pyruvate. Keywords Escherichia coli · Succinic acid · Fermentation · Strophanthus preussii · Biorefnery Introduction One of the valued products which can be produced from lignocellulose biorefnery is succinic acid (1,4-butanedioic acid), an organic acid, with great potential in medicine, food, biopolymers and agriculture [1, 2]. Important chemicals, such as tetrahydrofuran, γ-butyrolactone, 2-pyrrolidone, polybutylene succinate adipate, polybutylene succinate and Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-018-1977-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Andong Song Song1666@126.com * Jianmin Xing jmxing@ipe.ac.cn Ayobami Matthew Olajuyin doctorayobami@gmail.com Maohua Yang mhyang@ipe.ac.cn Omolola Abidemi Adesanoye oadesanoye@yahoo.com Oluwatosin Adekunle Adaramoye aoadaramoye@yahoo.com 1 State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Beijing, People’s Republic of China 2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, People’s Republic of China 3 Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Lyngby, Denmark 4 Sino-Danish Center for Education and Research, Niels Jensensvej 2, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark 5 Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria 6 Key Laboratory of Enzyme Engineering of Agricultural Microbiology, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Life Sciences, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450002, People’s Republic of China