Isolation of Penicillium expansum WH-3 for the production of L(+)-tartaric acid
Wen-na Bao, Yi Chen, Hong-xiu Liao, Hang Chen, Shi-wang Liu, Yong Liu
School of Biological and Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China; Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory for Chemical and Biological Processing Technology of Farm Products, Hangzhou 310023, China
wennabao@163.com
Abstract: The L(+)-form of tartaric acid (L(+)-TA) exists extensively in nature, and is widely used in the food, chemical, textile, building, and pharmaceutical industries (Su et al., 2001). The main method for L(+)-TA production is microbial transformation by cis-epoxysuccinate hydrolase (CESH), which can catalyze the asymmetric hydrolysis of cis-epoxysuccinic acid or its salts to TA or tartrate (Bao et al., 2019). Seventeen species containing CESH have been isolated so far. However, most species for L(+)-TA production have been reported from bacteria (Xuan and Feng, 2019). The only fungus isolated from soil by our lab recently, that could be used as catalyst for the process under acidic condition, is Aspergillus niger WH-2 (Bao et al., 2020). In order to find strains with new characteristics, this study attempted to isolate a new CESH source from fungi and investigate its application value.