A microbial platform for renewable propane synthesis based on a fermentative butanol pathway

Biotechnology for Biofuels

Nigel S Scrutton²  Patrik R Jones¹  David Leys²  M Kalim Akhtar³  Karl Fisher²  Pauli Kallio³  Binuraj RK Menon²  András Pásztor³  Navya Menon² 

[1]Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Sir Alexander Fleming Building, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, UK

[2]BBSRC/EPSRC Centre for Synthetic Biology of Fine and Speciality Chemicals, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences, 131 Princess Street, The University of Manchester, Manchester M1 7DN, UK

[3]Molecular Plant Biology, Department of Biochemistry, Tykistökatu 6A 6krs, University of Turku, FI 20014 TURUN YLIOPISTO, Turku, Finland

关键词: Escherchia coli;    Aldehyde deformylating oxygenase;    Cyanobacteria;    Microbial pathway engineering;    Butanol;    Propane;   

Others  :  1177293
DOI  :  10.1186/s13068-015-0231-1

 received in 2014-11-10, accepted in 2015-02-23,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

Propane (C₃H₈) is a volatile hydrocarbon with highly favourable physicochemical properties as a fuel, in addition to existing global markets and infrastructure for storage, distribution and utilization in a wide range of applications. Consequently, propane is an attractive target product in research aimed at developing new renewable alternatives to complement currently used petroleum-derived fuels. This study focuses on the construction and evaluation of alternative microbial biosynthetic pathways for the production of renewable propane. The new pathways utilize CoA intermediates that are derived from clostridial-like fermentative butanol pathways and are therefore distinct from the first microbial propane pathways recently engineered in Escherichia coli.

Results

We report the assembly and evaluation of four different synthetic pathways for the production of propane and butanol, designated a) atoB-adhE2 route, b) atoB-TPC7 route, c) nphT7-adhE2 route and d) nphT7-TPC7 route. The highest butanol titres were achieved with the atoB-adhE2 (473 ± 3 mg/L) and atoB-TPC7 (163 ± 2 mg/L) routes. When aldehyde deformylating oxygenase (ADO) was co-expressed with these pathways, the engineered hosts also produced propane. The atoB-TPC7-ADO pathway was the most effective in producing propane (220 ± 3 μg/L). By (i) deleting competing pathways, (ii) including a previously designed ADO_A134F variant with an enhanced specificity towards short-chain substrates and (iii) including a ferredoxin-based electron supply system, the propane titre was increased (3.40 ± 0.19 mg/L).

Conclusions

This study expands the metabolic toolbox for renewable propane production and provides new insight and understanding for the development of next-generation biofuel platforms. In developing an alternative CoA-dependent fermentative butanol pathway, which includes an engineered ADO variant (ADO_A134F), the study addresses known limitations, including the low bio-availability of butyraldehyde precursors and poor activity of ADO with butyraldehyde.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Menon et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

【 图 表 】

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