title: Production of lactic acid using a new homofermentative Enterococcus faecalis isolate.
abstract: Lactic acid is an intermediate-volume specialty chemical for a wide range of food and industrial applications such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and chemical syntheses. Although lactic acid production has been well documented, improved production parameters that lead to reduced production costs are always of interest in industrial developments. In this study, we describe the production of lactic acid at high concentration, yield and volumetric productivity utilizing a novel homofermentative, facultative anaerobe Enterococcus faecalis CBRD01. The highest concentration of 182 g lactic acid l(-1) was achieved after 38 h of fed-batch fermentation on glucose. The bacterial isolate utilized only 2-13% of carbon for its growth and energy metabolism, while 87-98% of carbon was converted to lactic acid at an overall volumetric productivity of 5 g l(-1)  h(-1). At 13 h of fermentation, the volumetric productivity of lactate production reached 10.3 g l(-1)  h(-1), which is the highest ever reported for microbial production of lactic acid. The lactic acid produced was of high purity as formation of other metabolites was less than 0.1%. The present investigation demonstrates a new opportunity for enhanced production of lactic acid with potential for reduced purification costs.
authors.affiliation: Center for Bioprocessing Research and Development, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD, 57701, USA.
authors.forename: Mohan Raj
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Subramanian
authors.forename: Suvarna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Talluri
authors.forename: Lew P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Christopher
mesh_terms: D001709:Biotechnology / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods; D002244:Carbon / Q000378:metabolism; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D013293:Enterococcus faecalis / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism*; D005285:Fermentation; D019344:Lactic Acid / Q000191:economics / Q000378:metabolism*; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D019344:Lactic Acid; D002244:Carbon