Novel and neglected issues of acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation by clostridia: Clostridium metabolic diversity, tools for process mapping and continuous fermentation systems

Abstract

This review emphasises the fact that studies of acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation by solventogenic clostridia cannot be limited to research on the strain Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824. Various 1-butanol producing species of the genus Clostridium, which differ in their patterns of product formation and abilities to ferment particular carbohydrates or glycerol, are described. Special attention is devoted to species and strains that do not produce acetone naturally and to the utilisation of lactose, inulin, glycerol and mixtures of pentose and hexose carbohydrates. Furthermore, process-mapping tools based on different principles, including flow cytometry, DNA microarray analysis, mass spectrometry, Raman microscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy and anisotropy of electrical polarisability, which might facilitate fermentation control and a deeper understanding of ABE fermentation, are introduced. At present, the methods with the greatest potential are flow cytometry and transcriptome analysis. Flow cytometry can be used to visualise and capture cells within clostridial populations as they progress through the normal cell cycle, in which symmetric and asymmetric cell division phases alternate. Cell viability of a population of Clostridium pasteurianum NRRL B-598 was determined by flow cytometry. Transcriptome analysis has been used in various studies including the detection of genes expressed in solventogenic phase, at sporulation, in the stress response, to compare expression patterns of different strains or parent and mutant strains, for studies of catabolite repression, and for the detection of genes involved in the transport and metabolism of 11 different carbohydrates. Interestingly, the results of transcriptome analysis also challenge our earlier understanding of the role of the Spo0A regulator in initiation of solventogenesis in C. acetobutylicum ATCC 824. Lastly, the review describes other significant recent discoveries, including the deleterious effects of intracellular formic acid accumulation in C. acetobutylicum DSM 1731 cells on the metabolic switch from acidogenesis to solventogenesis and the development of a high-cell density continuous system using Clostridium saccharoperbutylacetonicum N1-4, in which 1-butanol productivity of 7.99 g/L/h was reached.