Recent advances in the microbial production of L-arginine and its derivatives using engineering Corynebacterium glutamicum and Escherichia coli.

Corynebacterium glutamicum and Escherichia coli have achieved maximum L-arginine titers of 92.5 g/L and 132 g/L, respectively, in microbial production systems.

• Why it matters: Efficient microbial production of L-arginine is limited by feedback inhibition, complex biosynthetic pathways, high cofactor needs, by-product accumulation, ammonia requirements, and product export challenges, hindering industrial scalability.
• What they did: Metabolic engineering strategies, including pathway flux enhancement, precursor and product transport improvements, and cofactor optimization, have been used to construct more efficient L-arginine-producing strains in C. glutamicum and E. coli.
• The result: These approaches have advanced the development of cell factories with higher yields and productivities, paving the way for future improvements such as stress tolerance and substrate versatility for L-arginine derivatives.