Development of an Escherichia coli cell factory for the industrial production of 5-methylpyrazine-2-carboxylic acid

On 25 November 2020, the European Union adopted the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe. This initiative highlights that the delocalization of basic and fine chemicals manufacturing outside the European Union has reached a critical point, where disruptions in the supply chains are no longer mitigated by local manufacturing. Therefore, a considerable effort is being invested to develop local, innovative and more environmentally friendly routes to existing chemicals. Thus, we are currently working on developing and optimizing and alternative strategy to produce the pharmaceutical building block 5-methylpyrazine-2-carboxylic acid (MPCA), currently used to produce antidiabetic drugs. The original concept was hindered several problems, such has the toxicity of the product, the short activity of the first enzyme and the high cost of the current substrate. We developed an Escherichia coli able to sustain high concentration of MPCA which is able to produce it form L-threonine, thus opening the door to the possibility of producing it from cheap substrates like glucose or glycerol.