UCLA researchers engineer E. coli to produce record-setting amounts of alternative fuel

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-engineers-drive-e-coli-to-197675.aspx

UCLA researchers engineer E. coli to produce record-setting amounts of alternative fuel

Altering microbe's metabolism leads to big jump in n-butanol production

By Wileen Wong Kromhout March 16, 2011 Category: Research
Researchers at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a way to produce normal butanol — often proposed as a "greener" fuel alternative to diesel and gasoline — from bacteria at rates significantly higher than those achieved using current production methods.

The findings, reported online in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, mark an important advance in the production of normal butanol, or n-butanol, a four-carbon chain alcohol that has been shown to work well with existing energy infrastructure, including in vehicles designed for gasoline, without modifications that would be required with other biofuels.

The UCLA team, led by James C. Liao, UCLA's Chancellor's Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, demonstrated success in producing 15 to 30 grams of n-butanol per liter of culture medium using genetically engineered Escherichia coli — a record-setting increase over the typical one to four grams produced per liter in the past.

For the study, Liao and his team initially constructed an n-butanol biochemical pathway in E. coli, a microbe that doesn't naturally produce n-butanol, but found that production levels were limited. However, after adding 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.

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[Duer 157099]

1. Just as long as "explosive diarrhea" isn't involved n/t

[Denninmi]

2. What would happen if that got into the human body.

E. coli is normal flora in the human and animal gut. But, putting out this compound is not normal. What would this do to someone if it got into their body and started to reproduce. Would the fuel product be toxic?

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Then there would be one more hazardous strain of E. Coli

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli

[NickB79]

6. Don't try lighting any farts on fire!

:nuke:

[pscot]

8. Spontaneous combustion

[kestrel91316]

13. When bacteria are engineered like this, they also insert a gene that codes for total dependence

on some offbeat nutrient that isn't found in living things, that has to be fed to the engineered bugs constantly to keep them alive. I forget exactly what is typically used, but it works very well.

Not that I am thrilled by genetic engineering as a whole, but it has been put to some fabulous uses along with some notably bad. Our best, most effective and safest feline vaccines are engineered from canarypox virus. Whoda thunk?

[orwell]

4. I welcome the arrival...

...of our bacterial overlords!

[kestrel91316]

5. Bacteria are our friends, children.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. Sadly, they're not very good conversationalists

(At least with us.)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110302080003.htm

[kestrel91316]

14. They are more like cats in that regard, I must admit. Actually, cats talk

a lot, they just don't speak English.....

[Confusious]

10. Not this one, not if it's inside. nt

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Butanol has been a dark horse candidate for some time. Some history ...

Clostridium acetobutylicum, included in the genus Clostridium, is a commercially valuable bacterium. It is sometimes called the "Weizmann Organism", after Chaim Weizmann, who in 1916 helped discover how C. acetobutylicum culture could be used to produce acetone, butanol, and ethanol from starch using the ABE process (Acetone Butanol Ethanol process) for industrial purposes such as gunpowder and Cordite (using acetone) production. The A.B.E. process was an industry standard until the late 1940s, when low oil costs drove more-efficient processes based on hydrocarbon cracking and petroleum distillation techniques. C. acetobutylicum also produces acetic acid (vinegar), butyric acid (a substance that smells like vomit), carbon dioxide, and hydrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridium_acetobutylicum

Lots more interesting stuff in the wiki. DUgle butanol, it's been a popular topic in E/E!

The starch from chestnuts, gathered from forests by schoolchildren, was used as the feedstock in WWI Britain. Acetone was needed as a solvent/plasticizer in the manufacture of cordite for shells, and Germany was the principal source, until the outbreak of war. So Weizmann's discovery was a crucial one for the British war effort. And yes, it's that Weizmann, first president of Israel, founder of Weizmann Institute of Science.

[CRH]

11. E coli, alternative energy, - sounds positively Nuclear: n/t

[kickysnana]

12. What could possibly go wrong with that?

:shrug: :nuke:

[kestrel91316]

15. Relax. They engineer offbeat nutrient dependence into these industrial bugs.

It's pretty cool. The bugs die if they don't constantly get fed weird stuff that isn't found in living things. It's a mandatory safety consideration, and one the microbiologists thought of decades ago.