Large-Scale Production of Isocitric Acid Using <i>Yarrowia lipolytica</i> Yeast with Further Down-Stream Purification

Abstract

Isocitric acid (ICA) refers to a group of promising regulators of energy metabolism which has antistress, antihypoxic, and antioxidant activities. In this paper, we reported a process of ICA production from rapeseed oil using yeast Yarrowia lipolytica VKM Y-2373 in a 500-L fermentor. The producer synthesized 64.1 g/L ICA with a product yield of 0.72 g/g and a productivity 0.54 g/L·h. We also developed an effective purification method, including a cell separation, clarification, concentration, acidification, and crystallization process, which resulted in the formation of the crystals of monopotassium salt of ICA with a purity of 99.0–99.9%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on an ICA production process at an upscaled bioreactor level.

Keywords

• large-scale biology
• yeast <i>Yarrowia lipolytica</i>
• biosynthesis
• isocitric acid (ICA)
• citric acid (CA)
• isolation