A Review on Bio Prospective Potential of Corynebacterium glutamicum
Authors: B.S.R. Pattnaik Asfaw Tora Kacho 
Published: September 2021

Corynebacterium glutamicumis a nonpathogenic, aerobic, gram-positive soil bacterium used for the large-scale biotechnological production of several biomolecules. C. glutamicum is an industrial microbe traditionally used for the production of amino acids. It is a well known microbe as the workhorse in fermentation industry used since its first discovery in Japan in 1950s for production of monosodium glutamate (MSG)and L-lysine with a market size of 3.1 and 2.2 million. However, for the fermentative production of diverse products through genetic–metabolic engineering. Due to its industrial importance, several clones of C. glutamicum have been sequenced by both industry and academic groups. Furthermore it has also been exploited for the synthesis of a variety of other fuels and chemicals. Especially, the facultative anaerobic lifestyle of this Gram-positive bacterium formed the basis to engineer C. glutamicum for the production of reduced molecules such as organic acids (e.g., lactate, succinate) and alcohols (e.g., ethanol, isobutanol) under zero-growth anaerobic conditions. The present work is a review of various uses of C. glutamicum for which the researchers explored several resources including the PubMed database, Journals and online archives upto March 2019. The review in its analysis signifies the vital utility of C. glutamicum in various prospective. Most articles were on occurrence, metabolism, metabolic role, and industrial uses of bacterial polyhydroxyalkanoates. Through genetic alterations, this microbe showed its efficacy for the simultaneous utilization of hexose and pentose sugars of biomass hydrolysate for making value-added products, such as amino acids and polyamines, and thus making it a strain of choice to work in a bio-refinery concept. This soil microbe also showed its efficacy in bioremediation purposes, such as arsenic removal. Recently its extensive research has focused on engineering beyond the scope of amino acids for utilization of alternative carbon sources, (e.g. coming from wastes and unprocessed sources), and construction of C. glutamicum strains for production of new products such as diamines, organic acids and alcohols. Meanwhile, a variety of corynebacterial strains allows access to alternative carbon sources that allows production of a wide range of industrially relevant compounds. Some of these efforts set new standards in terms of titers and productivities achieved whereas others represent a proof-of-principle. These achievements manifest the position of C. glutamicum as an important industrial microorganism with capabilities far beyond the traditional amino acid production. According to the studies cited in different literatures C. glutamicum reported as the most effective and playing important roles as dominant bacteria in biotechnological applications as well as industrial processes and products. And, with recent advances in biotechnology, the economic contributions that these organisms can make in biotechnological applications and industrial processes can be exploited further for large scale benefit of mankind.