Study of the effect of culture mediums on the amino acid metabolites for Corynebacterium glutamicum using high-speed micellar electrokinetic chromatography

Corynebacterium glutamicum ( C. glutamicum ) is a well-known workhorse for the industrial production of amino acids. Different carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur source may force the bacterium to produce specific metabolites. In this work, a method of high-speed MEKC with LIF detection was developed to rapidly analyze the amino acid metabolites released by C. glutamicum , which is fed with different culture mediums. Corynebacterium glutamicum was cultured in microbial fuel cells to monitor its metabolism process and collect its metabolites. In the CE system, a microliter-scale sample reservoir was designed and applied to perform tiny volume sample injection. With the assistance of microwave, the derivatization time for amino acids with FITC was greatly shortened to 6 min. Under the optimized condition, the eight candidate amino acids of metabolites could be rapidly separated within 2 min. The whole analysis process for real samples, from sampling to determination, could be shortened to less than 10 min. The results showed that C. glutamicum could produce additional l -lysine and l -valine as the metabolites when fed with glucose and l -methionine, respectively. The method proved that culture mediums used to feed C. glutamicum had great effect on the bacterium's metabolites.