Harnessing xylose pathways for biofuels production
Review article, 2019

Energy security, environmental pollution, and economic development drive the development of alternatives to fossil fuels as an urgent global priority. Lignocellulosic biomass has the potential to contribute to meeting the demand for biofuel production via hydrolysis and fermentation of released sugars, such as glucose, xylose, and arabinose. Construction of robust cell factories requires introducing and rewiring of their metabolism to efficiently use all these sugars. Here, we review recent advances in re-constructing pathways for metabolism of pentoses, with special focus on xylose metabolism in the most widely used cell factories Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Escherichia coli. We also highlight engineering advanced biofuels-synthesis pathways and describes progress toward overcoming the challenges facing adoption of large-scale biofuel production.

Escherichia coli

Fossil fuels

Energy security

Author

Xiaowei Li

Novo Nordisk Foundation

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Yun Chen

Novo Nordisk Foundation

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Jens Christian Froslev Nielsen

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Novo Nordisk Foundation

Current Opinion in Biotechnology

0958-1669 (ISSN) 1879-0429 (eISSN)

Vol. 57 56-65

Subject Categories

Renewable Bioenergy Research

Bioenergy

Energy Systems

DOI

10.1016/j.copbio.2019.01.006

More information

Latest update

5/26/2023