Engineering of inherent fatty acid biosynthesis capacity to increase octanoic acid production.

Background: As a versatile platform chemical, construction of microbial catalysts for free octanoic acid production from biorenewable feedstocks is a promising alternative to existing petroleum-based methods. However, the bio-production strategy has been restricted by the low capacity of inherent fatty acid biosynthesis. In this study, a combination of integrated computational and experimental approach was performed to manipulate the existing metabolic network, with the objective of improving bio-octanoic acid production.