Production of advanced biofuels in engineered E. coli

•Production of short-chain alcohols from branched amino acids and acetyl-CoA.•Production of diesel targets from acetyl-CoA via fatty acid and isoprenoid biosynthesis.•Design principles for building high-flux pathways through pathway or host manipulation.

Commercial fermentation processes have long taken advantage of the synthetic power of living systems to rapidly and efficiently transform simple carbon sources into complex molecules. In this regard, the ability of yeasts to produce ethanol from glucose at exceptionally high yields has served as a key feature in its use as a fuel, but is also limited by the poor molecular properties of ethanol as a fuel such as high water miscibility and low energy density. Advances in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology allow us to begin constructing new high-flux pathways for production of next generation biofuels that are key to building a sustainable pipeline for liquid transportation fuels.

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