title: Expanding the product profile of a microbial alkane biosynthetic pathway.
abstract: Microbially produced alkanes are a new class of biofuels that closely match the chemical composition of petroleum-based fuels. Alkanes can be generated from the fatty acid biosynthetic pathway by the reduction of acyl-ACPs followed by decarbonylation of the resulting aldehydes. A current limitation of this pathway is the restricted product profile, which consists of n-alkanes of 13, 15, and 17 carbons in length. To expand the product profile, we incorporated a new part, FabH2 from Bacillus subtilis , an enzyme known to have a broader specificity profile for fatty acid initiation than the native FabH of Escherichia coli . When provided with the appropriate substrate, the addition of FabH2 resulted in an altered alkane product profile in which significant levels of n-alkanes of 14 and 16 carbons in length are produced. The production of even chain length alkanes represents initial steps toward the expansion of this recently discovered microbial alkane production pathway to synthesize complex fuels. This work was conceived and performed as part of the 2011 University of Washington international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) project.
authors: Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors: Matthew
authors: M
authors: Harger
authors: Lei
authors: L
authors: Zheng
authors: Austin
authors: A
authors: Moon
authors: Casey
authors: C
authors: Ager
authors: Ju Hye
authors: JH
authors: An
authors: Chris
authors: C
authors: Choe
authors: Yi-Ling
authors: YL
authors: Lai
authors: Benjamin
authors: B
authors: Mo
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Zong
authors: Matthew D
authors: MD
authors: Smith
authors: Robert G
authors: RG
authors: Egbert
authors: Jeremy H
authors: JH
authors: Mills
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Baker
authors: Ingrid Swanson
authors: IS
authors: Pultz
authors: Justin B
authors: JB
authors: Siegel
mesh_terms: D000473:Alkanes / Q000378:metabolism*; D001412:Bacillus subtilis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D056804:Biofuels / Q000382:microbiology; D053898:Biosynthetic Pathways; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D005227:Fatty Acids / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D010578:Petroleum / Q000382:microbiology
chemical_list: D000473:Alkanes; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D056804:Biofuels; D005227:Fatty Acids; D010578:Petroleum
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