Fatty acid synthesis in Escherichia coli and its applications towards the production of fatty acid based biofuels

The idea of renewable and regenerative resources has inspired research for more than a hundred years. Ideally, the only spent energy will replenish itself, like plant material, sunlight, thermal energy or wind. Biodiesel or ethanol are examples, since their production relies mainly on plant material...

Verfasser: Janßen, Helge
Steinbüchel, Alexander
FB/Einrichtung:FB 13: Biologie
Dokumenttypen:Artikel
Medientypen:Text
Erscheinungsdatum:2014
Publikation in MIAMI:19.02.2014
Datum der letzten Änderung:16.04.2019
Angaben zur Ausgabe:[Electronic ed.]
Quelle:Biotechnology for Biofuels 7 (2014) 7
Schlagwörter:Biofuels; Escherichia coli; Fatty acid biosynthesis; Regulation
Fachgebiet (DDC):570: Biowissenschaften; Biologie
Lizenz:CC BY 2.0
Sprache:English
Anmerkungen:Finanziert durch den Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 2013/2014 der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) und der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU Münster).
Format:PDF-Dokument
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-44319437750
Weitere Identifikatoren:DOI: 10.1186/1754-6834-7-7
Permalink:https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-44319437750
Onlinezugriff:1754-6834-7-7.pdf

The idea of renewable and regenerative resources has inspired research for more than a hundred years. Ideally, the only spent energy will replenish itself, like plant material, sunlight, thermal energy or wind. Biodiesel or ethanol are examples, since their production relies mainly on plant material. However, it has become apparent that crop derived biofuels will not be sufficient to satisfy future energy demands. Thus, especially in the last decade a lot of research has focused on the production of next generation biofuels. A major subject of these investigations has been the microbial fatty acid biosynthesis with the aim to produce fatty acids or derivatives for substitution of diesel. As an industrially important organism and with the best studied microbial fatty acid biosynthesis, Escherichia coli has been chosen as producer in many of these studies and several reviews have been published in the fields of E. coli fatty acid biosynthesis or biofuels. However, most reviews discuss only one of these topics in detail, despite the fact, that a profound understanding of the involved enzymes and their regulation is necessary for efficient genetic engineering of the entire pathway. The first part of this review aims at summarizing the knowledge about fatty acid biosynthesis of E. coli and its regulation, and it provides the connection towards the production of fatty acids and related biofuels. The second part gives an overview about the achievements by genetic engineering of the fatty acid biosynthesis towards the production of next generation biofuels. Finally, the actual importance and potential of fatty acid-based biofuels will be discussed.