Amino acid production

Abstract

Since microbial production of L-glutamic acid was started in 1957 in Japan, various amino acids production with microorganisms has been developed and almost all protein-constitutive amino acids become able to be produced by microbial biotechnology, fermentation, or enzymatic method. This chapter summarizes the microbial biotechnology which was developed and industrialized in Japan. The amino acids include L-alanine, L-cysteine, L-DOPA, L-glutamic acid, D-p-hydroxyphenylglycine, hydroxy-L-proline, L-lysine and L-threonine.