Institut für Molekulare Mikrobiologie und Biotechnologie, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Corrensstrasse 3, D-48149, Münster, Germany.
Biotechnol Biofuels. 2014 Jan 9;7(1):7. doi: 10.1186/1754-6834-7-7.
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.
可再生和可循环资源的理念已经启发了一百多年的研究。理想情况下,只有消耗的能量会自行补充,例如植物材料、阳光、热能或风能。生物柴油或乙醇就是这样的例子,因为它们的生产主要依赖于植物材料。然而,已经明显的是,源自农作物的生物燃料将不足以满足未来的能源需求。因此,特别是在过去十年中,大量的研究集中在下一代生物燃料的生产上。这些研究的一个主要课题是微生物脂肪酸的生物合成,目的是生产脂肪酸或衍生物来替代柴油。由于大肠杆菌是一种具有工业重要性的生物体,并且其微生物脂肪酸生物合成研究得最好,因此在许多这些研究中选择了大肠杆菌作为生产者,并且在大肠杆菌脂肪酸生物合成或生物燃料领域已经发表了几篇综述。然而,尽管深入了解参与的酶及其调控对于整个途径的有效遗传工程是必要的,但大多数综述仅详细讨论了其中一个主题。这篇综述的第一部分旨在总结大肠杆菌脂肪酸生物合成及其调控的知识,并将其与脂肪酸和相关生物燃料的生产联系起来。第二部分概述了通过遗传工程对脂肪酸生物合成进行改造以生产下一代生物燃料所取得的成就。最后,将讨论脂肪酸基生物燃料的实际重要性和潜力。