Patent ID: 7635579

Claim:
A method of making a microorganism that produces amino acid X comprising: (a) selecting a parental population of microorganisms A that contain an ilvBN operon and produce said amino acid from dextrose in percent yield Y; (b) mutagenizing said parental population of microorganisms A to produce a population of mutagenized microorganisms B; (c) selecting from the population of mutagenized microorganisms B, at least one mutagenized microorganism C that has at least one of a deletion, an insertion, and a point mutation in said ilvBN operon and that produces said amino acid X from dextrose in percent yield Z, wherein said percent yield Z is greater than said percent yield Y, and wherein said amino acid X is selected from the group consisting of L-lysine, L-threonine, L-methionine, and homoserine.