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Microbial engineering for the production of advanced biofuels

Abstract

Advanced biofuels produced by microorganisms have similar properties to petroleum-based fuels, and can 'drop in' to the existing transportation infrastructure. However, producing these biofuels in yields high enough to be useful requires the engineering of the microorganism's metabolism. Such engineering is not based on just one specific feedstock or host organism. Data-driven and synthetic-biology approaches can be used to optimize both the host and pathways to maximize fuel production. Despite some success, challenges still need to be met to move advanced biofuels towards commercialization, and to compete with more conventional fuels.

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Figure 1: The production of advanced biofuels.
Figure 2: Metabolic pathways used for the production of alcohol-based biofuels.
Figure 3: Metabolic pathways used for the production of isoprenoid-based biofuels.
Figure 4: Metabolic pathways used for the production of fatty-acid- and polyketide-derived biofuels.
Figure 5: Synthetic biology tools are used to maximize the production of biofuels from hosts.

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Acknowledgements

P. P. P.-Y. and F. Z. contributed equally to this work. This work was supported in part by the Joint BioEnergy Institute, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, through contract DE-AC02-05CH11231, and by the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, which is funded by National Science Foundation Award No. 0540879.

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Correspondence to Jay D. Keasling.

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J.D.K. has a financial interest in Amyris, LS9 and Lygos. S.B.d. has a financial interest in LS9. The remaining authors declare no competing financial interest.

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Peralta-Yahya, P., Zhang, F., del Cardayre, S. et al. Microbial engineering for the production of advanced biofuels. Nature 488, 320–328 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11478

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