Fig. 1.

(A) Removal of the glyoxylate shunt hypothetically increases the availability of the central metabolite, acetyl-CoA, for fatty acid synthesis and energy generation. (B) The simplified metabolic pathway for the synthesis of wax esters from glucose and amino acids by A. baylyi ADP1. In the engineered strain, the gene aceA encoding for the isocitrate lyase, was deleted, blocking the glyoxylate shunt. The gene acr1, encoding for the fatty acyl-CoA reductase, was overexpressed to facilitate wax ester production. In the final step of wax ester synthesis, fatty alcohol is esterified with fatty acyl-CoA by wax ester synthase (wax-dgaT).