KAIST Researchers Tout Novel Pathway for Producing Gasoline from Metabolically-Engineered Microorganism

摘要

A research team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has developed a novel approach to microbial gasoline production through the metabolic engineering of a strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli). Previously, through metabolic engineering of E. coli there have been a few research results on the production of long-chain alkanes, which consist of 13-17 carbon atoms suitable for replacing diesel. However, there has been no report on the microbial production of short-chain alkanes, a possible substitute for gasoline, according to the researchers.