We use fuel to power everything from our cars to our furnaces; however, our fuel supply is running low. As a result, we are turning to biofuels for renewable energy. We are trying ethanol, but it is inefficient, requires arable land, and pulls corn from the food supply. For this reason, our team is engineering E. coli K-12 to produce isobutanol, a biofuel with an energy density similar to gasoline. We started by improving E. coli’s resistance to isobutanol. Though E. coli can produce isobutanol naturally, its toxicity will hinder production at high concentrations. Higher resistance will allow for greater production later. We cloned the genes glmY, EutG, and AdhP, combined them with a range of promoters, and observed bacterial growth in media containing isobutanol from 5.410 to 162.3mM. In the future, we plan on cloning AdhE, AceE, AceF, YiaY, and glmZ: genes associated with alcoholic resistance.
