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Improving alkane synthesis in Escherichia coli via metabolic engineering

  • Applied genetics and molecular biotechnology
  • Published:
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Concerns about energy security and global petroleum supply have made the production of renewable biofuels an industrial imperative. The ideal biofuels are n-alkanes in that they are chemically and structurally identical to the fossil fuels and can “drop in” to the transportation infrastructure. In this work, an Escherichia coli strain that produces n-alkanes was constructed by heterologous expression of acyl-acyl carrier protein (ACP) reductase (AAR) and aldehyde deformylating oxygenase (ADO) from Synechococcus elongatus PCC7942. The accumulation of alkanes ranged from 3.1 to 24.0 mg/L using different expressing strategies. Deletion of yqhD, an inherent aldehyde reductase in E. coli, or overexpression of fadR, an activator for fatty acid biosynthesis, exhibited a nearly twofold increase in alkane titers, respectively. Combining yqhD deletion and fadR overexpression resulted in a production titer of 255.6 mg/L in E. coli, and heptadecene was the most abundant product.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31170040, 31200081) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (KGZD-EW-606).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Microbial Physiological and Metabolic Engineering, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Xuejiao Song, Haiying Yu & Kun Zhu

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Xuejiao Song

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  1. Xuejiao Song
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  2. Haiying Yu
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  3. Kun Zhu
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Correspondence to Kun Zhu.

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Song, X., Yu, H. & Zhu, K. Improving alkane synthesis in Escherichia coli via metabolic engineering. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 100, 757–767 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-7026-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-7026-y

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