Catalytically active inclusion bodies of L-lysine decarboxylase from E. coli for 1,5-diaminopentane production

Sustainable and eco-efficient alternatives for the production of platform chemicals, fuels and chemical building blocks require the development of stable, reusable and recyclable biocatalysts. Here we present a novel concept for the biocatalytic production of 1,5-diaminopentane (DAP, trivial name: cadaverine) using catalytically active inclusion bodies (CatIBs) of the constitutive L-lysine decarboxylase from E. coli (EcLDCc-CatIBs) to process L-lysine-containing culture supernatants from Corynebacterium glutamicum. EcLDCc-CatIBs can easily be produced in E. coli followed by a simple purification protocol yielding up to 43% dry CatIBs per dry cell weight. The stability and recyclability of EcLDCc-CatIBs was demonstrated in (repetitive) batch experiments starting from L-lysine concentrations of 0.1 M and 1 M. EcLDC-CatIBs exhibited great stability under reaction conditions with an estimated half-life of about 54 h. High conversions to DAP of 87–100% were obtained in 30–60 ml batch reactions using approx. 180–300 mg EcLDCc-CatIBs, respectively. This resulted in DAP titres of up to 88.4 g l−1 and space-time yields of up to 660 gDAP l−1 d−1 per gram dry EcLDCc-CatIBs. The new process for DAP production can therefore compete with the currently best fermentative process as described in the literature.