Industrial producer of starch-based acetone, butanol, and ethanol.. Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824

Clostridium acetobutylicum strain ATCC 824. This strain was isolated in 1924 from garden soil in Connecticut, USA, by E. Wyer and L. Rettger. It is one of the best studied solventogenic clostridia. The strain has been shown to be closely related to the historical Weizmann strain. It can utilize a broad range of mono- and disaccharides, starches, other substrates such as pectin, xylan, inulin and others. Solventogenic metabolic pathways of this strain have been elucidated. Most of the genes involved in solventogenesis are located on the megaplasmid pSOL1. The strain has been extensively studied from the physiological and bioengineering points of view, genetic systems have been developed that allow genes to be manipulated and solvent-tolerant and solvent-overproducing strains has been engineered.