Increased 2,3-butanediol production by changing codon usages in Escherichia coli

The natural microorganism Escherichia coli without modification is not suitable for the efficient production of 2,3-butanediol (2,3-BD) on an industrial scale because of its poor metabolic performance. Metabolic capacities of E. coli have been improved to produce 2,3-BD efficiently, the performance of which is possible for producing such a product. Codon optimization with the ribosome-binding site for the efficient production of target genes (budA and budC) was achieved by molecular engineering, which allowed the metabolic engineering to proceed to the next level. As a result, comparing the productivity in 26H, where the amount of p18COR was 1.04g/L and that of p18WTR was 0.41g/L, represents an approximate 60.6% increase in the productivity of the p18WTR with codon optimization. In other words, p18COR was 2.54-fold greater than p18WTR in the production of 2,3-BD. (C) 2014 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.