T-Frontier division, Frontier Research Center, Toyota Motor Corporation, 1 Toyota-cho, Toyota, Aichi, 471-8572, Japan.
Agriculture & Biotechnology Business division, Toyota Motor Corporation, 1099 Marune, Kurozasa-cho, Miyoshi, Aichi, 470-0201, Japan.
Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 2019 Jul;103(14):5917-5923. doi: 10.1007/s00253-019-09900-1. Epub 2019 May 20.
Aliphatic medium-chain alkanes, a major component of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels, are drop-in compatible fuels. Microorganisms with the capacity to produce medium-chain alkanes are promising for the bio-production of drop-in fuel. We found that Klebsiella sp. NBRC100048 has the ability to produce medium-chain alkanes from medium-chain aldehydes. We cloned a gene involved in conversion of aldehydes to alkanes by using a genomic fosmid library derived from Klebsiella sp. NBRC100048. The gene termed orf2991 encodes 506 amino acids and shows 62% sequence homology to the aldehyde dehydrogenase of Escherichia coli, aldB. The finding of orf2991 as a novel alkane-synthesizing enzyme gene similar to E. coli aldehyde dehydrogenase family, which is generally known to catalyze a reaction oxidizing aldehydes to fatty acids, indicated a novel function of aldehyde dehydrogenase. This finding is not only significant academically but allows developing the novel manufacturing methods of alkanes fermentation.
脂肪族中链烷烃是汽油、柴油和喷气燃料的主要成分，是可直接添加的燃料。能够生产中链烷烃的微生物是生物生产可直接添加燃料的有前途的方法。我们发现，Klebsiella sp. NBRC100048 具有从中链醛生产中链烷烃的能力。我们使用源自 Klebsiella sp. NBRC100048 的基因组 fosmid 文库克隆了参与醛转化为烷烃的基因。该基因称为 orf2991，编码 506 个氨基酸，与大肠杆菌的醛脱氢酶 aldB 具有 62%的序列同源性。orf2991 作为一种新型的烷烃合成酶基因的发现类似于大肠杆菌醛脱氢酶家族，该家族通常被认为催化将醛氧化为脂肪酸的反应，表明醛脱氢酶具有新的功能。这一发现不仅在学术上具有重要意义，而且还为烷烃发酵的新型制造方法的开发提供了可能。
