초록
<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>Biologically produced alcohols are of great current interest for renewable solvents and liquid transportation fuels. While bioethanol is now produced on a massive scale, butanol has superior fuel characteristics and an additional value as a solvent and chemical feedstock. Butanol production has been demonstrated at ambient temperatures in metabolically-engineered mesophilic organisms, but the ability to engineer a microbe for <I>in vivo</I> high-temperature production of commodity chemicals has several distinct advantages. These include reduced contamination risk, facilitated removal of volatile products, and a wide temperature range to modulate and balance both the engineered pathway and the host׳s metabolism. We describe a synthetic metabolic pathway assembled from genes obtained from three different sources for conversion of acetyl-CoA to 1-butanol, and 1-butanol generation from glucose was demonstrated near 70°C in a microorganism that grows optimally near 100°C. The module could also be used in thermophiles capable of degrading plant biomass.</P> <P><B>Highlights</B></P> <P> <UL> <LI> Genes from three microbes were used to construct a high temperature butanol pathway. </LI> <LI> Individual and coupled enzyme activities from the three gene donors were verified. </LI> <LI> More than 1mM butanol was produced from maltose using intact cells. </LI> <LI> The highest temperature for engineered butanol production was demonstrated. </LI> <LI> The modular pathway may be used in other hosts and with other feedstocks. </LI> </UL> </P>