Production of Fatty Acids and Derivatives by Metabolic Engineering of Bacteria

Abstract

Metabolic engineering provides a powerful set of tools to engineer organisms such as bacteria, fungi, and plants to produce chemicals of interest. Fatty acid metabolism enables the sustainable production of many oleochemicals used as fuels, materials, and consumer products. In this chapter, we describe the biochemical pathways and metabolic engineering strategies that have been employed in bacteria to produce fatty acids and their related oleochemical products, such as alkanes, olefins, ketones, esters, alcohols, and polyesters. While microbial oleochemical production is promising, significant work remains to address the metabolic, physiological, and process engineering barriers that obstruct economic commercial deployment.