US researchers develop new ways of producing biofuels from E.coli

US researchers from Washington University have developed a new way to harness the chemical production properties of E.coli bacteria, making the production of certain biofuels from the bacteria more efficient.

The new method, described in a paper published in the journal Metabolic Engineering, involves the development of two different protein pathways capable of chemically affecting the production of biofuel in E.coli.

Previously, researchers have difficulty producing branched-chain fatty acids (BCFA), which are important precursors of freeze-resistant or cold-flow biofuels, because common bacteria like E.coli mostly produce straight-chain fatty acids (SCFA), which have inferior fuel properties.

Because the two compounds were produced by the bacteria at the same time, researchers can only extract about 20% BCFA concentrations. Additional chemical processes were also necessary to separate the BCFA from the SCFA and to enrich the BCFA, making the whole process not cost-efficient.

On the other, the new method could boost enable the E.coli bacteria to boost its BCFA production to 80% of all fuel products. This is made possible by fixing the so-called bottleneck of the BCFA production line.

"It's a higher quality," said Gayle Bentley, a doctoral student in Zhang's lab, and the lead author of the paper, in a statement. "A lot of people have been making these SCFA fuels, and while that's important work, they don't have the improved qualities like we're generating. The difference is quite significant."

Beside from the biofuels potential of the fatty acids derived from the E.coli bacteria, it can also be used in pharmaceuticals. Fatty acids are beneficial as a nutraceutical, effective as an anti-tumor compound. Furthermore, these compounds are proven to be effective in preventing and treating neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis.

Compounds, such as fatty acids, are very expensive to derive from their original source.