Reverse Beta Oxidation Cycle for Biofuel Production

A team of researchers from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Department of Bioengineering, Rice University (United States), recently developed an "efficient technique in converting simple glucose into biofuels and petrochemical substitutes" through the use of reverse beta oxidation cycle. The beta oxidation cycle is said to be one of the most efficient and most fundamental metabolic pathways used by organisms to break down fatty acids into energy.

In their study, the researchers reversed the beta oxidation cycle by selectively manipulating about a dozen genes in the bacteria Escherichia coli. By harnessing the efficiency of the beta oxidation pathway, the researchers successfully converted glucose to biobutanol, an "advanced" biofuel that can be substituted for gasoline in most engines, at a "breakneck pace".

According to the study, some advantages of this novel method are (1) the selective manipulations of certain genes could produce fatty acids of particular lengths, including long-chain molecules like stearic acid and palmitic acid, which have chains of more than a dozen carbon atoms; (2) the rate of biobutanol production is ten times faster than any previous method on a cell-per-cell basis; and (3) any other industrial organisms, such as yeast or algae, could be used in this method since the beta-oxidation pathway is present in almost every organism. The full paper is published in the journal, Nature (URL above).