(582bu) Microbial Production of 2,3 Butanediol and L-Lactate From Seaweed Hydrolysate Using Metabolically Engineered Escherichia Coli

A variety of biofuel and biorefinery products have been produced from engineered Escherichia coli till date. Most of these products had been derived from simple sugars in its pure form, rather than deriving it from alternative, renewable and carbon neutral sources, such as marine alga biomass. Engineering E. coli to use algal hydrolysate can make these an attractive carbon source for the industrial production of value added fuels and chemicals. In two separate studies we have reported the engineering of E. coli by a combination of gene deletion and synthetic pathway incorporation, for the efficient utilization of algal hydrolysate under microaerobic condition to produce BA (2,3 butanediol + acetoin) and L- Lactate. In one study engineered strain produced ~19g/L of BA at a yield of 0.43g/g, while second study demonstrated the homofermentative route to produce 37.7g/L of high optical purity L-lactate. Our studies had shown that algal biomass would be competitive with lignocellulosic biomass and that brown seaweed can be used as a feed stock for industrial production of other chemicals.