thumb|170px|[[Chaim Weizmann]]
Clostridium acetobutylicum, ATCC 824, is a commercially valuable bacterium sometimes called the Weizmann organism, after Jewish Russian-born biochemist Chaim Weizmann. A senior lecturer at the University of Manchester, England, he used them in 1916 as a bio-chemical tool to produce at the same time, jointly, acetone, ethanol, and n-butanol from starch. The method has been described since as the ABE process (acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation process), yielding 3 parts of acetone, 6 of n-butanol, and 1 of ethanol. In 2013, the first microbial production of short-chain alkanes was reported - which is a considerable step toward the production of gasoline. One of the crucial enzymes - a fatty acyl-CoA reductase - came from Clostridium acetobutylicum.
See also
- ABE
- Acetone
- Butanol
- Clostridium beijerinckii
- Ethanol
References
Further reading
External links
- ATCC reference organism 824 C.Acetobutylicum.
- findarticles.com: Bacteria speeds drug to tumors - use of Clostridium acetobutylicum enzyme to activate cancer drug CB 1954.
- EPA Clostridium acetobutylicum Final Risk Assessment
- Genetic Engineering of Clostridium acetobutylicum for Enhanced Production of Hydrogen Gas: Penn State University.
- Pathema-Clostridium Resource
- Chaim Weizmann
- Type strain of Clostridium acetobutylicum at BacDive - the Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase