Butanol is not only an important chemical feedstock but also expected to become a new generation biofuel. Thus, biological butanol production using renewable feedstocks has attracted renewed attention due to the worries of global oil supply and its impact on social and economic development. However, compared with petrochemical-derived butanol, biological butanol production is still not economically competition, because of its major drawbacks: high cost of the feedstocks, low butanol concentration in the fermentation broth and the co-production of low-value byproducts acetone and ethanol. Recently, Shanghai cooperative bio-butanol group (SCBG) developed a simple-to-complex technical route to improve bio-butanol production with a focus on: increasing butanol ratio in the solvent through metabolic engineering of Clostridia spp.; introducing and optimizing the butanol synthetic pathway in the species with high butanol tolerance; overcoming the glucose repression effect to utilize low-cost non-grain based feedstocks. SCBG believes that, through extensive domestic and international industry-university-research cooperation, a sustainable and economically viable process for biological butanol production can be established in the near future.
Biofuels ; Butanols ; metabolism ; Clostridium ; genetics ; metabolism ; Clostridium beijerinckii ; genetics ; metabolism ; Fermentation ; Genetic Engineering ; methods ; Industrial Microbiology ; methods ; trends

Objective:To analyze pathogenic mutations in a child with ankyloblepharon-ectodermal defects-cleft lip/palate syndrome.Methods:Clinical data were collected from a patient with ankyloblepharon-ectodermal defects-cleft lip/palate syndrome, and DNA was extracted from peripheral blood samples from the patient and his parents. High-throughput sequencing was performed in the patient by using a gene panel targeting hereditary skin diseases, aiming to determine sites of disease-causing gene mutations. Then, Sanger sequencing was conducted to bidirectionally verify the mutations in the patient and his parents.Results:The male patient aged 3 years and 9 months, and presented with extensive erythema, scales, erosions as well as repeated infections and erosions of the scalp after birth. Reticulated hyper- and hypopigmented patches and scars left on the trunk and limbs after healing of erosions. Physical examination also showed sparse scalp hair, absence of most eyebrows and eyelashes, cleft palate, dysplastic teeth, dystrophic finger and toe nails, and deformed ears without ankyloblepharon. Genetic testing of the patient showed a novel heterozygous missense mutation c.1790T>A (p.Ile597Asn) in the TP63 gene, which had not been reported previously and was rated as pathogenic according to the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics guidelines. This mutation was not identified in either of his parents.Conclusion:The novel heterozygous missense mutation c.1790T>A in the TP63 gene probably contributes to ankyloblepharon-ectodermal defects-cleft lip/palate syndrome in the patient, which expands genotypic and phenotypic spectrum of this disease.