Fig. 4.

De novo production of branched fatty acids and alkanes in E. coli. (A) Typical GC-MS TIC of FAs extracted from control cells without BCKD/KASIII expression (Left) or from cells expressing BCKD/KASIII (Right). *Branched FA products [methyl tetradecanoic acid (14:0*) and methyl hexadecanoic acid (16:0*)]. Total FA recovered from control cells, 0.6 mg⋅L⁻¹ ± 0.2 in control lines; for cells expressing BCKD/KASIII, 2.5 mg⋅L⁻¹ ± 0.4. (B) Typical GC-MS TIC of alkanes extracted from control cells expressing CEDDEC (Left) and cells coexpressing BCKD/KASIII and CEDDEC (Right). *Branched alkane product [methyl pentadecane (15:0*) absent in CEDDEC]. Mass spectral data for methyl pentadecane are given in Fig. S3.