Engineering microbial fatty acid metabolism for biofuels and biochemicals

Eko Roy Marella; Carina Holkenbrink; Verena Siewers; Irina Borodina

doi:10.1016/j.copbio.2017.10.002

Engineering microbial fatty acid metabolism for biofuels and biochemicals

Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2018 Apr:50:39-46. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2017.10.002. Epub 2017 Nov 1.

Authors

Eko Roy Marella¹, Carina Holkenbrink¹, Verena Siewers², Irina Borodina³

Affiliations

¹ The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Technical University of Denmark, Kemitorvet 220, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark.
² The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Kemivägen 10, SE412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.
³ The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Technical University of Denmark, Kemitorvet 220, 2800 Kgs, Lyngby, Denmark. Electronic address: irbo@biosustain.dtu.dk.

PMID: 29101852
DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2017.10.002

Abstract

Traditional oleochemical industry chemically processes animal fats and plant oils to produce detergents, lubricants, biodiesel, plastics, coatings, and other products. Biotechnology offers an alternative process, where the same oleochemicals can be produced from abundant biomass feedstocks using microbial catalysis. This review summarizes the recent advances in the engineering of microbial metabolism for production of fatty acid-derived products. We highlight the efforts in engineering the central carbon metabolism, redox metabolism, controlling the chain length of the products, and obtaining metabolites with different functionalities. The prospects of commercializing microbial oleochemicals are also discussed.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Biofuels*
Biomass*
Biotechnology / methods*
Fatty Acids / metabolism*
Metabolic Engineering*
Organic Chemicals*

Substances

Biofuels
Fatty Acids
Organic Chemicals