SBIR Phase I: Development of an Engineered Yeast Strain for the Production of Butanol - a Second Generation Biofuel

SBIR 第一阶段：开发用于生产丁醇（第二代生物燃料）的工程酵母菌株

• 批准号: 0912548
• 负责人: Nikolai KHRAMTSOV
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Arbor Fuel Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-07-01 至 2009-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0912548&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Development; Engineered; Yeast

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project describes the engineering of a novel recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain containing the butanol biosynthetic pathway. Currently, most butanol technology development focuses on the genetic manipulation of the Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE) fermentation microorganisms of the genus Clostridium. While several Clostridium species have the natural ability to make butanol via the ABE pathway, the amount of butanol produced is low, and therefore these strains would struggle to be commercially viable. To avoid this limitation, the genes involved in the butanol biosynthesis from Clostridium acetobutylicum were introduced into the yeast Sacharomyces cerevisiae using genetic engineering techniques. This simple eukaryote was chosen because of its robust nature in industrial fermentation and also because it is a genetically tractable organism. When combined with our work enabling yeast to digest and utilize cellulose as a feedstock, we expect to have generated a microbe capable of converting biomass into a next generation biofuel and industrial solvent.Much research and development has gone into the production of ethanol from biomass; although ethanol production is the most mature biofuel technology, other alcohol-based fuels, such as butanol, can be used as renewable replacements for gasoline. Butanol offers a number of benefits over ethanol including higher energy content; butanol can be used directly as a fuel in current vehicles without modification; butanol is less corrosive than ethanol and can be piped through the existing pipeline infrastructure. Butanol produced from petroleum is currently used as an industrial solvent or as feedstock for manufacturing plastics and has an existing market of several billion dollars worldwide. The current economic climate has forced the identification of new manufacturing processes that replace the use of petroleum. As a result, there is growing interest in fermentation of butanol from renewable resources. Through the 1940s, butanol was produced as a fermentation product by bacteria from the genus Clostridium. Due to economic considerations, manufacturing processes utilizing petroleum as the raw material replaced commercial scale fermentation. By utilizing non-food feedstock, the yeast strain that Arbor Fuel Inc will construct could play a significant role in reducing our country's reliance on petroleum and increase the utilization of renewable energy resources.

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目描述了一种新的重组酿酒酵母菌株的工程包含丁醇生物合成途径。目前，大多数丁醇技术开发集中于梭菌属的丙酮-丁醇-乙醇（ABE）发酵微生物的遗传操作。 虽然几种梭菌属物种具有通过ABE途径制造丁醇的天然能力，但所产生的丁醇的量很低，因此这些菌株将难以在商业上可行。 为了避免这一限制，利用基因工程技术将丙酮丁醇梭菌丁醇生物合成相关基因导入酿酒酵母中。选择这种简单的真核生物是因为它在工业发酵中具有强大的性质，也因为它是一种遗传上易于处理的生物。结合我们的工作，使酵母消化和利用纤维素作为原料，我们希望已经产生了一种微生物能够转化生物质成为下一代生物燃料和工业溶剂。尽管乙醇生产是最成熟的生物燃料技术，但其它醇基燃料，例如丁醇，可以作为汽油的可再生替代品。丁醇比乙醇具有许多优点，包括更高的能量含量;丁醇可以直接用作当前车辆的燃料而无需修改;丁醇的腐蚀性比乙醇小，并且可以通过现有的管道基础设施输送。由石油生产的丁醇目前用作工业溶剂或制造塑料的原料，在全球拥有数十亿美元的现有市场。目前的经济气候迫使人们确定新的制造工艺，以取代石油的使用。因此，人们对从可再生资源发酵丁醇的兴趣越来越大。在20世纪40年代，丁醇是由梭菌属的细菌发酵产生的。出于经济考虑，利用石油作为原材料的生产工艺取代了商业规模的发酵。 通过利用非食品原料，Arbor燃料公司将建设的酵母菌株可以在减少我国对石油的依赖和增加可再生能源的利用方面发挥重要作用。