E. Coli Engineered to Produce Record-Setting Amounts of Alternative Fuel

At UCLA, researchers have developed a new way to produce butane, and alternative fuel to diesel and gasoline. It can be said that butane is more "greener" fuel when compared to the alternatives. Butane is a four-carbon chain alcohol that has worked well with as a fuel source for other types of devices that need energy like vehicles designed for gasoline. E.Coli or also known as Escherichia coli is the bacteria that the people at UCLA are using for their research. The team of scientist at UCLA  had demonstrated success by producing 15 to 30 grams of n-butanol per liter of culture medium using genetically modified E. Coli. This is an increase from the amount of 1-4 grams per liter that was in the past.

The team of scientists, lead by James C. Liao, UCLA's Chancellor's Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, first constructed the made the biochemical pathway for E. Coli, even though it is not naturally produce n-butanol. This process cam up short and the production levels were limited. To tackle this problem what the team at UCLA did was add metabolic driving forces to the pathway, the researchers witnessed a tenfold increase in the production of n-butanol. The metabolic driving forces pushed the carbon flux to n-butanol.

We created driving forces by genetically engineering the metabolism," said Claire R. Shen, a UCLA Engineering graduate student and lead author of the study. While certain microbes, including species of the bacteria Clostridium, naturally produce n-butanol, Liao's team used E. coli because it is easier to manipulate and has been used industrially in producing various chemicals. The next step in the research, the researchers say, will be to transfer the study to industry for the development of a more robust industrial process.

This idea of alternative fuel through genetic engineering is a good idea. This would not solve the problem with dependence of fossil fuels but it is a step in the right direction. There will definitely be an interest in this topic because a species is being used to make something that is important to people. In this case it is fuel, however like i said this is just the primary step and more research is needed to further this experiment.