Turning Bacteria Into Butanol Biofuel Factories: Transplanted Enzyme Pathway Makes E. Coli Churn Out N-butanol

[Moontanman]

Turning Bacteria Into Butanol Biofuel Factories: Transplanted Enzyme Pathway Makes E. Coli Churn out N-Butanol

 

The enzyme pathway by which glucose is turned into n-butanol is set against the silhouette of an E. coli bacterium. The pathway, taken from Clostridium bacteria and inserted into E. coli, consists of five enzymes that convert acetyl-CoA, a product of glucose metabolism, into n-butanol (C4H9OH). (Credit: Michelle Chang/UC Berkeley)

 

ScienceDaily (Mar. 3, 2011) — University of California, Berkeley, chemists have engineered bacteria to churn out a gasoline-like biofuel at about 10 times the rate of competing microbes, a breakthrough that could soon provide an affordable and "green" transportation fuel.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110302091648.htm