Efficient biotransformation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural to 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furancarboxylic acid by a new whole-cell biocatalyst Pseudomonas aeruginosa PC-1

5-Hydroxymethyl-2-furancarboxylic acid (HMFCA) is a significant added-value intermediate derivatized from the bio-based platform chemical 5-hydroxymethylfurfuraldehyde (HMF). In the HMFCA biosynthesis process, the catalytic performance of the biocatalyst always decreases due to the presence of HMF toxicity, which is not conducive to achieving high product accumulation. Herein, we successfully obtained a new whole-cell biocatalyst from Pseudomonas aeruginosa PC-1, which was first reported to produce HMFCA from HMF. After optimization, 90.1% yield of HMFCA was attained within 6 h using a 100 mM substrate. Importantly, a much lower cell dosage was needed in the process. In order to achieve higher HMFCA accumulation, a fed-batch strategy was developed by using the growing cells from P. aeruginosa PC-1. Consequently, a total concentration of 721 mM HMFCA was obtained from 800 mM HMF within 58 h after 8 cycles of fed-batch, which is the highest concentration to date. The efficient HMFCA production made P. aeruginosa PC-1 a promising whole-cell biocatalyst for selective, large scale biotransformation of HMF.