Ethanol Entner-Doudoroff pathway

As previously mentioned and in the earlier discussion of fermentation methanol, bacteria of the genus Zymomonas such as Z. mobilis are known to convert hexoses to ethanol at high yields and short residence times. These bacteria are facultative anaerobes that have fermentative capacity and convert only glucose, fructose, and sucrose to equimolar quantities of ethanol and CO2 the pentoses are not converted. The Entner-Doudoroff pathway is utilized instead of the Embden-Meyerhof pathway, and a net yield of 1 mol of ATP is generated, not 2 mol as in bakers yeast. But pyruvate is the same key intermediate. In Z. mobilis, it is decarboxylated by pyruvate decarboxylase to yield acetaldehyde which is then reduced to ethanol by alcohol dehydrogenase. 

Another promising micro-organism for the production of fuel ethanol is Zymomonas mobilis. This facultative anaerobic. Gram-negative bacterium degrades glucose by the so-called Entner-Doudoroff-pathway with the consequence that only 1 mol of ATP is produced during the breakdown of... 

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