Background: The effect of diverse oxygen transfer coefficient on the l-erythrulose production from meso-erythritol by a newly isolated strain, Gluconobacter kondonii CGMCC8391 was investigated. In order to elucidate the effects of volumetric mass transfer coefficient (k_La) on the fermentations, baffled and unbaffled flask cultures, and fed-batch cultures were developed in present work.

Results: With the increase of the k_La value in the fed-batch culture, l-erythrulose concentration, productivity and yield were significantly improved, while cell growth was not the best in the high k_La. Thus, a two-stage oxygen supply control strategy was proposed, aimed at achieving high concentration and high productivity of l-erythrulose. During the first 12 h, k_La was controlled at 40.28 h^-1 to obtain high value for cell growth, subsequently k_La was controlled at 86.31 h^-1 to allow for high l-erythrulose accumulation.

Conclusions: Under optimal conditions, the l-erythrulose concentration, productivity, yield and DCW reached 207.9 ± 7.78 g/L, 6.50 g/L/h, 0.94 g/g, 2.68 ± 0.17 g/L, respectively. At the end of fermentation, the l-erythrulose concentration and productivity were higher than those in the previous similar reports.