Isobutanol is one of the naturally occurring structural isomers of butanol in the fermentation process of carbohydrates. Isobutanol is a branched alcohol that is highly utilized in the biorefinery industry due to its attractive properties as a biofuel...
Isobutanol is one of the naturally occurring structural isomers of butanol in the fermentation process of carbohydrates. Isobutanol is a branched alcohol that is highly utilized in the biorefinery industry due to its attractive properties as a biofuel compared to bioethanol. In this study, five essential genes for isobutanol production were overexpressed: alsS gene from Bacillus subtilis, ilvC, ilvD and yqhD gene from E. coli, kivD gene from Lactococcus lactis. Moreover, for minimization of byproducts formation, a mutant E. coli strain without the frdA, ldhA, adhE, and pta genes in E. coli MG1655 (DE3) was used as the host bacteria. In a fed-batch fermentation with 10 g/L glucose and using a 2.5 L bioreactor, recombinant E. coli with plasmid pCDFDuet_alsS_ilvD_kivD and pETDuet_ilvC_yqhD produced up to 0.17 g/g isobutanol yield. Strain expressing als gene from Lactococcus lactis showed 1.71 g/L isobutanol production which was similar to alsS from Bacillus subtilis. That strain was not show a significant effect that the titer and yield of isobutanol. Fermentation with a dual cofactor system showed no significant difference in isobutanol yield compared to that without the system. noxE expression was effective to produce isobutanol in WT strain, but it wasn’t effective in K/O strain. Simultaneous expression of ilvCm, adhA and noxE genes, showed less isobutanol production than the WT strains.