A Bio-Catalytic Approach to Aliphatic Ketones

Depleting oil reserves and growing environmental concerns have necessitated the development of sustainable processes to fuels and chemicals. Here we have developed a general metabolic platform in E. coli to biosynthesize carboxylic acids. By engineering selectivity of 2-ketoacid decarboxylases and s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2012-03, Vol.2 (1), p.311-311, Article 311
Main Authors: Xiong, Mingyong, Deng, Jin, Woodruff, Adam P., Zhu, Minshan, Zhou, Jun, Park, Sun Wook, Li, Hui, Fu, Yao, Zhang, Kechun
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/45/320
631/61/338
639/638/224
704/844/685
Acids
Amino Acid Sequence
Biocatalysis
Carboxylic acids
Catalysts
E coli
Humanities and Social Sciences
Ketones
Ketones - chemistry
Ketones - metabolism
Kinetics
Methyl isobutyl ketone
Models, Molecular
Molecular Sequence Data
multidisciplinary
Science
Sustainable development
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Summary:Depleting oil reserves and growing environmental concerns have necessitated the development of sustainable processes to fuels and chemicals. Here we have developed a general metabolic platform in E. coli to biosynthesize carboxylic acids. By engineering selectivity of 2-ketoacid decarboxylases and screening for promiscuous aldehyde dehydrogenases, synthetic pathways were constructed to produce both C5 and C6 acids. In particular, the production of isovaleric acid reached 32 g/L (0.22 g/g glucose yield), which is 58% of the theoretical yield. Furthermore, we have developed solid base catalysts to efficiently ketonize the bio-derived carboxylic acids such as isovaleric acid and isocaproic acid into high volume industrial ketones: methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK, yield 84%), diisobutyl ketone (DIBK, yield 66%) and methyl isoamyl ketone (MIAK, yield 81%). This hybrid “Bio-Catalytic conversion” approach provides a general strategy to manufacture aliphatic ketones and represents an alternate route to expanding the repertoire of renewable chemicals.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep00311