Engineering the xylose&#x2010;catabolizing Dahms pathway for production of poly( <small>D</small> &#x2010;lactate&#x2010; <i>co</i> &#x2010;glycolate) and poly( <small>D</small> &#x2010;lactate&#x2010; <i>co</i> &#x2010;glycolate&#x2010; <i>co</i> &#x201

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

<P><B>Summary</B></P><P>Poly(lactate‐<I>co</I>‐glycolate), PLGA, is a representative synthetic biopolymer widely used in medical applications. Recently, we reported one‐step direct fermentative production of PLGA and its copolymers by metabolically engineered <I>Escherichia coli</I> from xylose and glucose. In this study, we report development of metabolically engineered <I>E. coli</I> strains for the production of PLGA and poly(<SMALL>D</SMALL>‐lactate‐<I>co</I>‐glycolate‐<I>co</I>‐<SMALL>D</SMALL>‐2‐hydroxybutyrate) having various monomer compositions from xylose as a sole carbon source. To achieve this, the metabolic flux towards Dahms pathway was modulated using five different synthetic promoters for the expression of <I>Caulobacter crescentus</I> XylBC. Further metabolic engineering to concentrate the metabolic flux towards <SMALL>D</SMALL>‐lactate and glycolate resulted in production of PLGA and poly(<SMALL>D</SMALL>‐lactate‐<I>co</I>‐glycolate‐<I>co</I>‐<SMALL>D</SMALL>‐2‐hydroxybutyrate) with various monomer fractions from xylose. The engineered <I>E. coli</I> strains produced polymers containing 8.8–60.9 mol% of glycolate up to 6.93 g l<SUP>−1</SUP> by fed‐batch cultivation in a chemically defined medium containing xylose. Finally, the biocompatibility of poly(<SMALL>D</SMALL>‐lactate‐<I>co</I>‐glycolate‐<I>co</I>‐<SMALL>D</SMALL>‐2‐hydroxybutyrate) was confirmed by live/dead assay using human mesenchymal stem cells.</P>