Insights into metabolic engineering approaches for enhanced biobutanol production

The increasing consumption and limited availability of nonrenewable fuels have compelled scientists to search for their replacements. Biofuels are gaining attention in this era as alternative fuels due to their sustainability. Among biofuels, butanol is seen as a promising future fuel because of its superior properties to other established biofuels. The biological methods employing various microorganisms are the methods of choice for the production of butanol due to the availability of low-cost raw materials. But the native microorganisms are incapable to produce this alcohol in appreciable amounts required for its economic viability due to various bottlenecks. Hence, a variety of metabolic engineering approaches such as gene knockout, over expression of key genes, antisense RNA technology, mutations, expression of alternative biosynthetic pathway, etc. has been employed to enhance the synthesis of biobutanol. In this chapter, various insights into metabolic engineering approaches adopted for enhanced biobutanol production have been compiled and elaborated with their prospects.