feedstock is an important goal of white biotechnology. Ethylene glycol (EG) is a large-volume commodity
chemical with an annual production of over 20 million tons, and it is currently produced exclusively by
petrochemical route. Herein, we report a novel biosynthetic route to produce EG from glucose by the
extension of serine synthesis pathway of Corynebacterium glutamicum. The EG synthesis is achieved by
the reduction of glycoaldehyde derived from serine. The transformation of serine to glycoaldehyde is
catalyzed either by the sequential enzymatic deamination and decarboxylation or by the enzymatic
decarboxylation and oxidation. We screened the corresponding enzymes and optimized the production
strain by combinatorial optimization and metabolic engineering. The best engineered C. glutamicum
strain is able to accumulate 3.5 g/L of EG with the yield of 0.25 mol/mol glucose in batch cultivation. This
study lays the basis for developing an efficient biological process for EG production