Abstract
Aliphatic medium-chain alkanes, a major component of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels, are drop-in compatible fuels. Microorganisms with the capacity to produce medium-chain alkanes are promising for the bio-production of drop-in fuel. We found that Klebsiella sp. NBRC100048 has the ability to produce medium-chain alkanes from medium-chain aldehydes. We cloned a gene involved in conversion of aldehydes to alkanes by using a genomic fosmid library derived from Klebsiella sp. NBRC100048. The gene termed orf2991 encodes 506 amino acids and shows 62% sequence homology to the aldehyde dehydrogenase of Escherichia coli, aldB. The finding of orf2991 as a novel alkane-synthesizing enzyme gene similar to E. coli aldehyde dehydrogenase family, which is generally known to catalyze a reaction oxidizing aldehydes to fatty acids, indicated a novel function of aldehyde dehydrogenase. This finding is not only significant academically but allows developing the novel manufacturing methods of alkanes fermentation.
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Ito, M., Kambe, H., Sawagashira, A. et al. Cloning of a novel gene involved in alkane biosynthesis from Klebsiella sp. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 103, 5917–5923 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-019-09900-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-019-09900-1