Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
Biotechnol J. 2011 Nov;6(11):1348-57. doi: 10.1002/biot.201100046.
Butanol is an important solvent and transport fuel additive, and can be produced by microbial fermentation. Attempts to generate a superior microbial producer of butanol have been made through different metabolic engineering strategies. However, to date, butanol bio-production is still not economically competitive compared to petrochemical-derived production because of its major drawbacks, such as, high cost of the feedstocks, low butanol concentration in the fermentation broth and the co-production of low-value by-products acetone and ethanol. Here we analyze the main bottlenecks in microbial butanol production and summarize relevant advances from recently reported studies. Further needs and directions for developing real industrially applicable strains in butanol production are also discussed.
丁醇是一种重要的溶剂和运输燃料添加剂，可通过微生物发酵生产。人们尝试通过不同的代谢工程策略来生产更优的丁醇微生物生产者。然而，迄今为止，与石油化工生产相比，丁醇的生物生产仍然没有经济竞争力，因为它存在一些主要缺点，例如，原料成本高、发酵液中丁醇浓度低以及副产物丙酮和乙醇的产量低。在这里，我们分析了微生物丁醇生产中的主要瓶颈，并总结了最近报道的研究中的相关进展。还讨论了在丁醇生产中开发真正工业适用菌株的进一步需求和方向。
