ArticleMicrobial biotechnology2016
Ustilago maydis produces itaconic acid via the unusual intermediate trans-aconitate.
Article in Microbial biotechnology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 66 papers.
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Who cites it
66 citing papers in PubMed, 137 citations in OpenAlex.
- Unravelling the metabolism of itaconate and related branched C5-dicarboxylates for COJournal of biological engineering · 2026Article
- Biosynthetic Gene Cluster Diversity and Species-Specific Metabolic Potential in Ustilaginaceae.Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- In situ product removal via reactive extraction in itaconic acid fermentation with Ustilago cynodontis.Biotechnology for biofuels and bioproducts · 2026Article
- EfficientSynthetic and systems biotechnology · 2026Article
- Low Oxygen Availability Increases Itaconate Production by Ustilago maydis.Biotechnology and bioengineering · 2025Article
- In Vivo Online Monitoring of Intracellular Lipid Accumulation inEngineering in life sciences · 2025Article
- Pseudomonadal itaconate degradation gene cluster encodes enzymes for methylsuccinate utilization.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Enhancing selective itaconic acid synthesis in Yarrowia lipolytica through targeted metabolite transport reprogramming.Biotechnology for biofuels and bioproducts · 2025Article
- Mechanistic and structural insights into the itaconate-producingPNAS nexus · 2025Article
- Metabolic Engineering of Filamentous FungusJournal of agricultural and food chemistry · 2025Article
- Itaconate and its derivatives as anti-pathogenic agents.RSC advances · 2025Review
- Selective production of the itaconic acid-derived compounds 2-hydroxyparaconic and itatartaric acid.Metabolic engineering communications · 2024Article
- Phosphate limitation enhances malic acid production on nitrogen-rich molasses with Ustilago trichophora.Biotechnology for biofuels and bioproducts · 2024Article
- Itaconate Production from Crude Substrates with U. maydis: Scale-up of an Industrially Relevant Bioprocess.Microbial cell factories · 2024Article
- DoE-based medium optimization for improved biosurfactant production withFrontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2024Article
- Development of an itaconic acid production process with Ustilaginaceae on alternative feedstocks.BMC biotechnology · 2023Article
- Holistic Approach to Process Design and Scale-Up for Itaconic Acid Production from Crude Substrates.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Functional Clustering of Metabolically Related Genes Is Conserved acrossJournal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Structural characterization of theComputational and structural biotechnology journal · 2023Article
- Characterization and engineering of branched short-chain dicarboxylate metabolism in Pseudomonas reveals resistance to fungal 2-hydroxyparaconate.Metabolic engineering · 2023Article
6 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Itaconic acid is an important biomass-derived chemical building block but has also recently been identified as a metabolite produced in mammals, which has antimicrobial activity. The biosynthetic pathway of itaconic acid has been elucidated in the ascomycetous fungus Aspergillus terreus and in human macrophages. In both organisms itaconic acid is generated by decarboxylation of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle intermediate cis-aconitate. Here, we show that the basidiomycetous fungus Ustilago maydis uses an alternative pathway and produces itaconic acid via trans-aconitate, the thermodynamically favoured isomer of cis-aconitate. We have identified a gene cluster that contains all genes involved in itaconic acid formation. Trans-aconitate is generated from cis-aconitate by a cytosolic aconitate-Δ-isomerase (Adi1) that belongs to the PrpF family of proteins involved in bacterial propionate degradation. Decarboxylation of trans-aconitate is catalyzed by a novel enzyme, trans-aconitate decarboxylase (Tad1). Tad1 displays significant sequence similarity with bacterial 3-carboxy-cis,cis-muconate lactonizing enzymes (CMLE). This suggests that U. maydis has evolved an alternative biosynthetic pathway for itaconate production using the toxic intermediate trans-aconitate. Overexpression of a pathway-specific transcription factor (Ria1) or a mitochondrial tricarboxylic acid transporter (Mtt1) resulted in a twofold increase in itaconate yield. Therefore, our findings offer new strategies for biotechnological production of this valuable biomass-derived chemical.
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