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  • Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli for 1-butanol and 1-propanol production via the keto-acid pathways.

Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli for 1-butanol and 1-propanol production via the keto-acid pathways.

Metabolic engineering (2008-09-09)
C R Shen, J C Liao
ABSTRACT

Production of higher alcohols via the keto-acid intermediates found in microorganism's native amino-acid pathways has recently shown promising results. In this work, an Escherichia coli strain that produces 1-butanol and 1-propanol from glucose was constructed. The strain first converts glucose to 2-ketobutyrate, a common keto-acid intermediate for isoleucine biosynthesis. Then, 2-ketobutyrate is converted to 1-propanol through reactions catalyzed by the heterologous decarboxylase and dehydrogenase, or to 1-butanol via the chemistry involved in the synthesis of the unnatural amino acid norvaline. We systematically improved the synthesis of 1-propanol and 1-butanol through deregulation of amino-acid biosynthesis and elimination of competing pathways. The final strain demonstrated a production titer of 2 g/L with nearly 1:1 ratio of butanol and propanol.

MATERIALS
Product Number
Brand
Product Description

Sigma-Aldrich
1-Propanol, ≥99% (GC), purum
Sigma-Aldrich
1-Butanol, ACS reagent, ≥99.4%
Sigma-Aldrich
1-Butanol, puriss. p.a., ACS reagent, reag. ISO, reag. Ph. Eur., ≥99.5% (GC)
Sigma-Aldrich
1-Butanol, suitable for HPLC, ≥99.7%
Sigma-Aldrich
1-Propanol, suitable for HPLC, ≥99.9%
Sigma-Aldrich
1-Butanol, anhydrous, 99.8%
Supelco
1-Propanol, analytical standard