An artificial synthetic pathway for acetoin, 2,3-butanediol, and 2-butanol production from ethanol using cell free multi-enzyme catalysis

Abstract

Upgrading ethanol to higher order alcohols is desired but difficult using current biotechnological methods. In this study, we designed a completely artificial reaction pathway for upgrading ethanol to acetoin, 2,3-butanediol, and 2-butanol in a cell-free bio-system composed of ethanol dehydrogenase, formolase, 2,3-butanediol dehydrogenase, diol dehydratase, and NADH oxidase. Under optimized conditions, acetoin, 2,3-butanediol, and 2-butanol were produced at 88.78%, 88.28%, and 27.25% of the theoretical yield from 100 mM ethanol, respectively. These results demonstrate that this artificial synthetic pathway is an environmentally-friendly novel approach for upgrading bio-ethanol to acetoin, 2,3-butanediol, and 2-butanol.