Microbial Production of Diamines

Diamines have the general structure of a carbon backbone with two amino groups. Their applications in industry are very diverse since they can be used as components for pharmaceuticals, surfactants, agrochemicals, and more importantly as monomers for polyamide plastics. Fossil-based polyamide production often involves environmental, economic, and consequently social concerns. By contrast, biobased polyamides production offers an attractive and green alternative. Approaches for metabolic engineering of microbial host for production of diamine compounds have been extensively applied in recent years, developing highly optimized fine-tuned cell-factories. Particularly, considerable efforts have been made to engineer new Escherichia coli and Corynebacterium glutamicum strains which are at the forefront of industrial biotechnology. The outstanding large-scale fermentation experience with these commonly used microbial workhorses as well as alternative microbial hosts as producing platforms offers the possibility that these biobased diamines may enter market-scale production volumes. Special emphasis has been placed on the development of cadaverine- and putrescine-producing strains, although new research lines and tendencies are pointing to the biobased production of other diamines such as diaminopropane. Furthermore, de novo microbial production approaches open the option of using renewable raw materials expanding the substrate spectrum of bioprocesses creating new added-value chains and supporting an eco-friendly economy. In this chapter, recent metabolic engineering advances for the microbial production of diamines from native and alternative substrates will be described and forecasted activities and developments within this topic will be discussed.