An Optimized for Itaconic Acid Production at Maximal Theoretical Yield

, a member of the Ustilaginaceae family, is a promising host for the production of several metabolites including itaconic acid. This dicarboxylate has great potential as a bio-based building block in the polymer industry, and is of special interest for pharmaceutical applications. Several itaconate overproducing strains have been generated by metabolic and morphology engineering. This yielded stabilized unicellular morphology through deletion, reduction of by-product formation through deletion of genes responsible for itaconate oxidation and (glyco)lipid production, and the overexpression of the regulator of the itaconate cluster and the mitochondrial tricarboxylate transporter encoded by from . In this study, itaconate production was further optimized by consolidating these different optimizations into one strain. The combined modifications resulted in itaconic acid production at theoretical maximal yield, which was achieved under biotechnologically relevant fed-batch fermentations with continuous feed.