Metabolic Engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum

Corynebacterium glutamicum is a major workhorse in industrial biotechnology for 60 years. As the world's flagship for amino acids, the microbe produces l-glutamate and l-lysine at a scale of seven million tons per year. In addition, it has been upgraded into a most versatile cell factory and meanwhile provides more than 80 different natural and non-natural compounds for chemical, energy, food and feed, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and medical applications. In this chapter, we introduce this well-performing bacterium and highlight pioneering discoveries as well as milestones in technology and application. Moreover, we summarize recent advances to streamline C. glutamicum for novel types of products and valorization of newly arising sustainable feedstocks.