Metabolic Engineering of the Thermophilic Bacteria, Bacillus stearothermophilus, for Ethanol Production

Thermophilic bacterium, Bacillus stearothermophilus NUB3621, was engineered to produce ethanol from glucose by introducing cloned thermostable pyruvate decarboxylase and alcohol dehydrogenase genes. A novel promoter sequence was screened and used for the enhancement of these two enzymes. Successful redirection of metabolic flux into ethanol was obtained. In addition, gene expression profiling using Bacillus subtilis DNA microarray was analyzed to overcome the intrinsic low glucose utilization of B.stearothermophilus. Many known and unknown genes were identified to be up or down regulated under glucose-containing media.