Abstract
With increasing environmental concerns and diminishing fossil resources, substrates for production of platform chemicals have shifted to renewable resources. Platform chemicals serve as intermediaries and are important precursors for making a range of chemicals and materials. Current research focusses on developing the microbial strains capable of producing the biochemicals using sugar substrates. Metabolic engineering of these strains aim at increasing the yield, range of substrates, and reduction of product inhibition and byproduct formation. In this chapter, we review few important sustainable platform chemicals (C2–C6) produced from sugar substrates via fermentation, recent advances in natural and engineered microbes for their production, and current market and commercialization ventures.