Engineering the Escherichia coli fermentative metabolism

Abstract

Fermentative metabolism constitutes a fundamental cellular capacity for industrial biocatalysis. Escherichia coli is an important microorganism in the field of metabolic engineering for its well-known molecular characteristics and its rapid growth. It can adapt to different growth conditions and is able to grow in the presence or absence of oxygen. Through the use of metabolic pathway engineering and bioprocessing techniques, it is possible to explore the fundamental cellular properties and to exploit its capacity to be applied as industrial biocatalysts to produce a wide array of chemicals. The objective of this chapter is to review the metabolic engineering efforts carried out with E. coli by manipulating the central carbon metabolism and fermentative pathways to obtain strains that produce metabolites with high titers, such as ethanol, alanine, lactate and succinate. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010.