Oxalic acid production by citric acid-producing Aspergillus niger overexpressing the oxaloacetate hydrolase gene oahA

The filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger is used worldwide in the industrial production of citric acid. However, under specific cultivation conditions, citric acid-producing strains of A. niger accumulate oxalic acid as a by-product. Oxalic acid is used as a chelator, detergent, or tanning agent. Here, we sought to develop oxalic acid hyperproducers using A. niger as a host. To generate oxalic acid hyperproducers by metabolic engineering, transformants overexpressing the oahA gene, encoding oxaloacetate hydrolase (OAH; EC 3.7.1.1), were constructed in citric acid-producing A. niger WU-2223L as a host. The oxalic acid production capacity of this strain was examined by cultivation of EOAH-1 under conditions appropriate for oxalic acid production with 30 g/l glucose as a carbon source. Under all the cultivation conditions tested, the amount of oxalic acid produced by EOAH-1, a representative oahA-overexpressing transformant, exceeded that produced by A. niger WU-2223L. A. niger WU-2223L and EOAH-1 produced 15.6 and 28.9 g/l oxalic acid, respectively, during the 12-day cultivation period. The yield of oxalic acid for EOAH-1 was 64.2 % of the maximum theoretical yield. Our method for oxalic acid production gave the highest yield of any study reported to date. Therefore, we succeeded in generating oxalic acid hyperproducers by overexpressing a single gene, i.e., oahA, in citric acid-producing A. niger as a host.