Kinetic modeling of free fatty acid production in Escherichia coli based on continuous cultivation of a plasmid free strain.

The microbial production of free fatty acids (FFAs) and reduced derivatives is an attractive process for the renewable production of diesel fuels. Toward this goal, a plasmid-free strain of Escherichia coli was engineered to produce FFAs by integrating three copies of a thioesterase gene from Umbellularia californica (BTE) under the control of an inducible promoter onto the chromosome. In batch culture, the resulting strain produced identical titers to a previously reported strain that expressed the thioesterase from a plasmid.