TY - JOUR
T1 - Metabolic engineering strategies for butanol production in Escherichia coli
AU - Ferreira, Sofia
AU - Pereira, Rui
AU - Wahl, S. A.
AU - Rocha, Isabel
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - The global market of butanol is increasing due to its growing applications as solvent, flavoring agent, and chemical precursor of several other compounds. Recently, the superior properties of n-butanol as a biofuel over ethanol have stimulated even more interest. (Bio)butanol is natively produced together with ethanol and acetone by Clostridium species through acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation, at noncompetitive, low titers compared to petrochemical production. Different butanol production pathways have been expressed in Escherichia coli, a more accessible host compared to Clostridium species, to improve butanol titers and rates. The bioproduction of butanol is here reviewed from a historical and theoretical perspective. All tested rational metabolic engineering strategies in E. coli to increase butanol titers are reviewed: manipulation of central carbon metabolism, elimination of competing pathways, cofactor balancing, development of new pathways, expression of homologous enzymes, consumption of different substrates, and molecular biology strategies. The progress in the field of metabolic modeling and pathway generation algorithms and their potential application to butanol production are also summarized here. The main goals are to gather all the strategies, evaluate the respective progress obtained, identify, and exploit the outstanding challenges.
AB - The global market of butanol is increasing due to its growing applications as solvent, flavoring agent, and chemical precursor of several other compounds. Recently, the superior properties of n-butanol as a biofuel over ethanol have stimulated even more interest. (Bio)butanol is natively produced together with ethanol and acetone by Clostridium species through acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation, at noncompetitive, low titers compared to petrochemical production. Different butanol production pathways have been expressed in Escherichia coli, a more accessible host compared to Clostridium species, to improve butanol titers and rates. The bioproduction of butanol is here reviewed from a historical and theoretical perspective. All tested rational metabolic engineering strategies in E. coli to increase butanol titers are reviewed: manipulation of central carbon metabolism, elimination of competing pathways, cofactor balancing, development of new pathways, expression of homologous enzymes, consumption of different substrates, and molecular biology strategies. The progress in the field of metabolic modeling and pathway generation algorithms and their potential application to butanol production are also summarized here. The main goals are to gather all the strategies, evaluate the respective progress obtained, identify, and exploit the outstanding challenges.
KW - biofuels
KW - butanol
KW - Escherichia coli
KW - genome-scale metabolic models
KW - metabolic engineering
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85085903772&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/bit.27377
DO - 10.1002/bit.27377
M3 - Review article
C2 - 32374413
SN - 0006-3592
VL - 117
SP - 2571
EP - 2587
JO - Biotechnology and Bioengineering
JF - Biotechnology and Bioengineering
IS - 8
ER -