The glyoxylate cycle is thought to be present in bacteria, protists, plants, fungi, and nematodes, but not in other Metazoa. However, activity of the glyoxylate cycle enzymes, malate synthase (MS) and isocitrate lyase (ICL), in animal tissues has been reported. In order to clarify the status of the MS and ICL genes in animals and get an insight into their evolution, we undertook a comparative-genomic study. Using sequence similarity searches, we identified MS genes in arthropods, echinoderms, and vertebrates, including platypus and opossum, but not in the numerous sequenced genomes of placental mammals. The regions of the placental mammals' genomes expected to code for malate synthase, as determined by comparison of the gene orders in vertebrate genomes, show clear similarity to the opossum MS sequence but contain stop codons, indicating that the MS gene became a pseudogene in placental mammals. By contrast, the ICL gene is undetectable in animals other than the nematodes that possess a bifunctional, fused ICL-MS gene. Examination of phylogenetic trees of MS and ICL suggests multiple horizontal gene transfer events that probably went in both directions between several bacterial and eukaryotic lineages. The strongest evidence was obtained for the acquisition of the bifunctional ICL-MS gene from an as yet unknown bacterial source with the corresponding operonic organization by the common ancestor of the nematodes. The distribution of the MS and ICL genes in animals suggests that either they encode alternative enzymes of the glyoxylate cycle that are not orthologous to the known MS and ICL or the animal MS acquired a new function that remains to be characterized. Regardless of the ultimate solution to this conundrum, the genes for the glyoxylate cycle enzymes present a remarkable variety of evolutionary events including unusual horizontal gene transfer from bacteria to animals. Arcady Mushegian (Stowers Institute for Medical Research), Andrey Osterman (Burnham Institute for Medical Research), Chris Ponting (Oxford University).

Gluconic acid, the oxidation product of glucose, is a mild neither caustic nor corrosive, non toxic and readily biodegradable organic acid of great interest for many applications. As a multifunctional carbonic acid belonging to the bulk chemicals and due to its physiological and chemical characteristics, gluconic acid itself, its salts (e.g. alkali metal salts, in especially sodium gluconate) and the gluconolactone form have found extensively versatile uses in the chemical, pharmaceutical, food, construction and other industries. Present review article presents the comprehensive information of patent bibliography for the production of gluconic acid and compares the advantages and disadvantages of known processes. Numerous manufacturing processes are described in the international bibliography and patent literature of the last 100 years for the production of gluconic acid from glucose, including chemical and electrochemical catalysis, enzymatic biocatalysis by free or immobilized enzymes in specialized enzyme bioreactors as well as discontinuous and continuous fermentation processes using free growing or immobilized cells of various microorganisms, including bacteria, yeast-like fungi and fungi. Alternatively, new superior fermentation processes have been developed and extensively described for the continuous and discontinuous production of gluconic acid by isolated strains of yeast-like mold Aureobasidium pullulans, offering numerous advantages over the traditional discontinuous fungi processes.

Current Review article summarizes the developments in citric acid production technologies in East and West last 100 years. Citric acid is commercially produced by large scale fermentation mostly using selected fungal or yeast strains in aerobe bioreactors and still remains one of the runners in industrial production of biotechnological bulk metabolites obtained by microbial fermentation since about 100 years, reflecting the historical development of modern biotechnology and fermentation process technology in East and West. Citric acid fermentation was first found as a fungal product in cultures of Penicillium glaucum on sugar medium by Wehmer in 1893 [1]. Citric acid is an important multifunctional organic acid with a broad range of versatile uses in household and industrial applications that has been produced industrially since the beginning of 20th century. There is a great worldwide demand for citric acid consumption due to its low toxicity, mainly being used as acidulant in pharmaceutical and food industries. Global citric acid production has reached 1.4 million tones, increasing annually at 3.5-4.0% in demand and consumption. Citric acid production by fungal submerged fermentation is still dominating, however new perspectives like solid-state processes or continuous yeast processes can be attractive for producers to stand in todays strong competition in industry. Further perspectives aiming in the improvement of citric acid production are the improvement of citric acid producing strains by classical and modern mutagenesis and selection as well as downstream processes. Many inexpensive by-products and residues of the agro-industry (e.g. molasses, glycerin etc.) can be economically utilized as substrates in the production of citric acid, especially in solid-state fermentation, enormously reducing production costs and minimizing environmental problems. Alternatively, continuous processes utilizing yeasts which reach 200-250 g/l citric acid can stand in todays strong competition in citric acid industry and replace the traditional discontinuous fungi processes.