High-yield production of short chain length poly(epsilon-L-lysine) consisting of 5-20 residues by Streptomyces aureofaciens, and its antimicrobial activity.

Munenori Takehara, Atsushi Hibino, Masayuki Saimura, Hideo Hirohara

Department of Materials Science, University of Shiga Prefecture, Hassaka, Hikone 522-8533, Japan. takehara@mat.usp.ac.jp

Biotechnology letters 2010 Sep

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Poly(epsilon-L-lysine) (epsilon-PL) is a naturally-occurring L-lysine homopolymer having antimicrobial activity. A newly-isolated strain of Streptomyces aureofaciens produced a short chain length epsilon-PL consisting of 5-20 residues at the highest production level of 4.5 g l(-1). This epsilon-PL had different spectra in terms of antimicrobial activity from the epsilon-PL that is now used as a food preservative. The high productivity was based on multiple metabolic pathways for L-lysine synthesis, and a great flux from L-lysine to epsilon-PL. The usefulness of this new epsilon-PL and its producing strain was discussed.

Citation

Munenori Takehara, Atsushi Hibino, Masayuki Saimura, Hideo Hirohara. High-yield production of short chain length poly(epsilon-L-lysine) consisting of 5-20 residues by Streptomyces aureofaciens, and its antimicrobial activity. Biotechnology letters. 2010 Sep;32(9):1299-303