Abstract
The use of a biological procedure for l-carnitine production as an alternative to chemical methods must be accompanied by an efficient and highly productive reaction system. Continuous l-carnitine production from crotonobetaine was studied in a cell-recycle reactor with Escherichia coli O44 K74 as biocatalyst. This bioreactor, running under the optimum medium composition (25 mM fumarate, 5 g/l peptone), was able to reach a high cell density (26 g dry weight/l) and therefore to obtain high productivity values (6.2 g l-carnitine l−1 h−1). This process showed its feasibility for industrial l-carnitine production. In addition, resting cells maintained in continuous operation, with crotonobetaine as the only medium component, kept their biocatalytic capacity for 4 days, but the biotransformation capacity decreased progressively when this particular method of cultivation was used.
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Received: 10 December 1998 / Received revision: 19 February 1999 / Accepted: 20 February 1999
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Obón, J., Maiquez, J., Cánovas, M. et al. High-density Escherichia coli cultures for continuous l(−)-carnitine production. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 51, 760–764 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/s002530051459
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s002530051459