earticle

영어

Butanol is a promising biofuel that have superior characteristics over ethanol. It is produced by several clostridial species through the so-called acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation. In the present study, we engineered two clostridial species to convert acetone into isopropanol, which can be used as a fuel. In C. acetobutylicum ATCC 824, overexpression of a primary/secondary alcohol dehydrogenase from C. beijerinckii NRRL B-593 (encoded by adhB-593), CoA transferase, and acetoacetate decarboxylase from C. acetobutylicum led to the best titer in batch fermentation. In C. beijerinckii NCIMB 8052, however, incomplete conversion of acetone was observed in the engineered strain that co-overexpressing the C. acetobutylicum adhE1 gene and the adhB-593 gene, suggesting that the gene-expression levels should be optimized in C. beijerinckii. [This work was supported by the Advanced Biomass R&D Center of Korea (ABC-2010-0029799) through the Global Frontier Research Program of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST). Further supports by BioFuelChem, EEWS program of KAIST, and the World Class University program (R32-2008-000- 10142-0) of the MEST are appreciated.]