Tryptophan - Biosynthesis and Industrial Production

Biosynthesis and Industrial Production

Plants and microorganisms commonly synthesize tryptophan from shikimic acid or anthranilate. The latter condenses with phosphoribosylpyrophosphate (PRPP), generating pyrophosphate as a bi-product. After ring opening of the ribose moiety and following reductive decarboxylation, indole-3-glycerinephosphate is produced, which in turn is transformed into indole. In the last step, tryptophan synthase catalyzes the formation of tryptophan from indole and the amino acid serine.

The industrial production of tryptophan is also biosynthetic and is based on the fermentation of serine and indole using either wild-type or genetically modified bacteria such as B. amyloliquefaciens, B. subtilis, C. glutamicum or E. coli. These strains carry either mutations that prevent the reuptake of aromatic amino acids or multiple/overexpressed trp operons. The conversion is catalyzed by the enzyme tryptophan synthase.

Read more about this topic:  Tryptophan

Famous quotes containing the words industrial and/or production:

    The Enormous Room seems to me to be the book that has nearest approached the mood of reckless adventure in which men will reach the white heat of imagination needed to fuse the soggy disjointed complexity of the industrial life about us into seething fluid of creation. There can be no more playing safe.
    John Dos Passos (1896–1970)

    ... this dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.
    Jane Addams (1860–1935)