Metabolic and proteomic analyses of product selectivity and redox regulation in Clostridium pasteurianum grown on glycerol under varied iron availability

Background Clostridium pasteurianum as an emerging new microbial cell factory can produce both n-butanol (BuOH) and 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PDO), and the pattern of product formation changes significantly with the composition of the culture medium. Among others iron content in the medium was shown to strongly affect the products selectivity. However, the mechanism behind this metabolic regulation is still unclear. For a better understanding of such metabolic regulation and for process optimization, we carried out fermentation experiments under either iron excess or iron limitation conditions, and performed metabolic, stoichiometric and proteomic analyses.