微生物木糖发酵产乙醇的代谢工程

Metabolic engineering for microbial production of ethanol from xylose: a review

利用木质纤维素发酵生产乙醇具有广泛的应用前景。而自然界中缺少有效转化木糖为乙醇的微生物是充分利用纤维素水解产物、提高乙醇产率、降低生产成本的关键因素。多年来研究者利用分子生物学技术对微生物菌株进行了代谢工程改造,使其能更有效地利用木糖生产乙醇。以下主要对运动发酵单胞菌、大肠杆菌和酵母等候选产乙醇微生物的木糖代谢工程研究进展进行了概述。

Discovery of an efficient bioconversion of cellulosic biomass and its hydrolysis to ethanol is the key to unlocking in developing of a bioethanol industry. The lack of industrially suitable microorganisms to convert xylose to ethanol fuel has been cited as a major technical bottleneck. In the past decades, many improvements have been made in the metabolic engineering of microorganisms, including Zymomonas mobilis, Escherichia coli, and yeasts, for the fermentation of xylose to produce ethanol by introducing genes for either xylose metabolism or ethanol production. The history and the current progress in constructing these strains are presented in this review.