D: -Mannitol formation from D: -glucose in a whole-cell biotransformation with recombinant Escherichia coli.

Recently, we reported on the construction of a whole-cell biotransformation system in Escherichia coli for the production of D: -mannitol from D: -fructose. Supplementation of this strain with extracellular glucose isomerase resulted in the formation of 800 mM D: -mannitol from 1,000 mM D: -glucose. Co-expression of the xylA gene of E. coli in the biotransformation strain resulted in a D: -mannitol concentration of 420 mM from 1,000 mM D: -glucose. This is the first example of conversion of D: -glucose to D: -mannitol with direct coupling of a glucose isomerase to the biotransformation system.