"
Team:Uppsala-Sweden/Butanol
From 2009.igem.org
Contents |
The Butanol Approach
Our goal is to achieve photosynthetic production of butanol and its derivates with the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 as the final host organism.
Background
Cyanobacteria have the capability to harvest the energy from the sun and convert it into other forms of energy. The natural way for these organisms is to store it as sugars or other carbohydrates in a way similar to plants. By introducing a casette of genes for isobutanol production, we would like to derive a cyanobacteria that produces butanol and its derivates.
The Pathway
The original pathway to obtain branched-chain higher alcohols was proposed and succesfully established in E. coli by Shota Atsumi1, Taizo Hanai1 and James C. Liao from the University of Californa, Los Angeles. 1323
The precursor for butanol production is pyruvate which is further processed to amino acid precursors. We want to hijack the pathway by introducing two genes which use these precursors to produce isobtuanol from them.
The Construct
Here is the preliminary construct for Synechocystis 6803.
