Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli for biofuel production

Peng Xu, Mattheos A.G. Koffas*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

Global energy demand and environmental concerns have stimulated increased efforts to develop more sustainable and cost-effective fuels with economical production processes that would make it feasible to replace petroleum-based fuels. The biological synthesis of such fuels relies on the exploitation of the diverse metabolic pathways leading to fuel-like biomolecules and has further opened up the possibility of synthesizing biofuels other than those naturally produced through fermentative pathways. This is because, as a framework, metabolic engineering has made it possible to reconstruct and assemble biosynthetic pathways in user-friendly microorganisms for de novo synthesis of fuel molecules. To highlight the advancements and the tremendous potential that exists, we review the recent progress in engineering of Escherichia coli for biofuel production.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)493-504
Number of pages12
JournalBiofuels
Volume1
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2010
Externally publishedYes

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