Abstract
Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum GSU5 was isolated from animal dung collected in a pasture plain in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This thermophilic and anaerobic microorganism was able to produce butanol and ethanol, but not acetone, using sugars such as xylose, arabinose, glucose, galactose, fructose, sucrose, and cellobiose. Key metabolic enzymes leading to solvent production were identified in its genome. A detailed analysis of the solvent and organic acid biosynthetic pathway genes of sequenced strains revealed new insights into the unique metabolic features of this species. Genes required for the synthesis of acetone are absent in the genomes of all sequenced Thermoanaerobacterium, suggesting that it is a general trait of the genus. Strains able to produce butanol synthesize butyrate through the one step pathway catalyzed by the butyryl-CoA:acetate-CoA transferase (But). The large range of fermentable substrates and the ability to produce both ethanol and butanol without acetone makes this species an interesting candidate for second generation biofuel production.
Highlights
Climate change is a threat to various forms of life on the planet Earth
The draft genome sequence of T. thermosaccharolyticum GSU5 was obtained in 73 contigs with a total length of 2.7 kb, with a mean G+C content of 33.9%
The results presented in this work indicate that neither PSU2 nor RBIITD belong to T. saccharolyticum, T. thermosaccharolyticum, T. xylanolyticum or T. aotearoense
Summary
Climate change is a threat to various forms of life on the planet Earth. This phenomenon is partially due to the preferential use of fossil fuels to sustain human activities such as heating, agriculture, or transportation. Among the most common biofuels are alcohols that can be obtained from microbial fermentation using different kinds of carbon sources. Ethanol is the best known and most studied alcohol that can be obtained by microbial fermentation using yeast or bacteria. While butanol is a less common but it is an increasingly attractive biofuel due to several characteristics, i.e., producing more energy if properly harnessed, having lower vapor pressure, and being less hygroscopic than ethanol (Dürre, 2007)
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