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Escherichia coli as a fatty acid and biodiesel factory: current challenges and future directions

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Abstract

Biodiesel has received widespread attention as a sustainable, environment-friendly, and alternative source of energy. It can be derived from plant, animal, and microbial organisms in the form of vegetable oil, fats, and lipids, respectively. However, biodiesel production from such sources is not economically feasible due to extensive downstream processes, such as trans-esterification and purification. To obtain cost-effective biodiesel, these bottlenecks need to be overcome. Escherichia coli, a model microorganism, has the potential to produce biodiesel directly from ligno-cellulosic sugars, bypassing trans-esterification. In this process, E. coli is engineered to produce biodiesel using metabolic engineering technology. The entire process of biodiesel production is carried out in a single microbial cell, bypassing the expensive downstream processing steps. This review focuses mainly on production of fatty acid and biodiesel in E. coli using metabolic engineering approaches. In the first part, we describe fatty acid biosynthesis in E. coli. In the second half, we discuss bottlenecks and strategies to enhance the production yield. A complete understanding of current developments in E. coli-based biodiesel production and pathway optimization strategies would reduce production costs for biofuels and plant-derived chemicals.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Intelligent Synthetic Biology Center of the Global Frontier Project, funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Republic of Korea. Part of this research was supported by the Startup Research Grant Program (SRGP) for Postdoctoral Associates (IPFP, Grant No: 21-395/SRGP/R&D/HEC/2014), Higher Education Commission of Pakistan.

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All authors contributed to study design, data collection, and manuscript editing. All authors approved the final manuscript.

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  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea

    Ziaur Rahman & Sun Chang Kim

  2. Department of Environmental and Conservation Sciences, University of Swat, Swat, 19130, Pakistan

    Ziaur Rahman & Javed Nawab

  3. Center for Biotechnology and Microbiology, University of Swat, Swat, Pakistan

    Ziaur Rahman

  4. Department of Chemical Engineering, COMSATS, Lahore, Pakistan

    Naim Rashid

  5. Department of Microbiology, AWKUM, Mardan, Pakistan

    Ziaur Rahman & Muhammad Ilyas

  6. Bioenergy and Biochemical Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea

    Bong Hyun Sung

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Rahman, Z., Rashid, N., Nawab, J. et al. Escherichia coli as a fatty acid and biodiesel factory: current challenges and future directions. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 12007–12018 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-6367-0

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