Recent Advances for Microbial Production of Xylitol

Abstract

Xylitol is a natural sugar alcohol widely used as a sugar substitute in foods, toothpastes, and mouthwashes and also can serve as a platform chemical for polymer synthesis. For mass production of xylitol, chemical processes of xylose hydrogenation were commercialized. But the sustainability issue has encouraged biological, especially microbial production of xylitol. From the 1990s, many research groups have identified and developed new microbial strains and processes for efficient conversion of xylose to xylitol. In the 2000s, metabolic engineering approaches based on genetic modulation have been applied for xylitol production with the theoretical yield. In this chapter, general principles for biological production of xylitol and major factors affecting microbial xylitol production are introduced. Recent development of recombinant microorganisms and their xylitol production processes are described, including technical approaches of genetic engineering, metabolic engineering, and cofactor engineering. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.