1. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering,
2. UCLA-DOE Insitute for Genomics and Proteomics, University of California, Los Angeles, 5531 Boelter Hall, 420 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA

Correspondence to: James C. Liao^1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to J.C.L. (Email: liaoj@seas.ucla.edu).

Abstract

Global energy and environmental problems have stimulated increased efforts towards synthesizing biofuels from renewable resources^{1, 2, 3}. Compared to the traditional biofuel, ethanol, higher alcohols offer advantages as gasoline substitutes because of their higher energy density and lower hygroscopicity. In addition, branched-chain alcohols have higher octane numbers compared with their straight-chain counterparts. However, these alcohols cannot be synthesized economically using native organisms. Here we present a metabolic engineering approach using Escherichia coli to produce higher alcohols including isobutanol, 1-butanol, 2-methyl-1-butanol, 3-methyl-1-butanol and 2-phenylethanol from glucose, a renewable carbon source. This strategy uses the host's highly active amino acid biosynthetic pathway and diverts its 2-keto acid intermediates for alcohol synthesis. In particular, we have achieved high-yield, high-specificity production of isobutanol from glucose. The strategy enables the exploration of biofuels beyond those naturally accumulated to high quantities in microbial fermentation.

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