Self-suficient redox biotransformation of lignin-related benzoic

PALAZZOLO, MA; MASCOTTI, ML; LEWKOWICZ, E; KURINA-SANZ, MB

JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MICROBIOLOGY & BIOTECHNOLOGY

SPRINGER HEIDELBERG

Lugar: HEIDELBERG; Año: 2015 vol. 42 p. 1581 - 1589

1367-5435

Aromatic carboxylic acids are readily obtained from lignin in biomass processing facilities. However, eficient technologies for lignin valorization are missing. In this work, a microbial screening was conducted to ind versatile biocatalysts capable of transforming several benzoic acids structurally related to lignin, employing vanillic acid as model substrate. The wild-type Aspergillus flavus growing cells exhibited exquisite selectivity towards the oxidative decarboxylation product, 2-methoxybenzene-1,4-diol. Interestingly, when assaying a set of structurally related substrates, the biocatalyst displayed the oxidative removal of the carboxyl moiety or its reduction to the primary alcohol whether electron withdrawing or donating groups were present in the aromatic ring, respectively. Additionally, A.flavus proved to be highly tolerant to vanillic acid increasing concentrations (up to 8 g/L), demonstrating its potential application in chemical synthesis. A. flavus growing cells were found to be eficient biotechnological tools to perform self-suficient, structure-dependent redox reactions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a biocatalyst exhibiting opposite redox transformations of the carboxylic acid moiety in benzoic acid derivatives, namely oxidative decarboxylation and carboxyl reduction, in a structure-dependent fashion.