Activity in Bacteria
In certain bacteria, acetoacetate decarboxylase is involved in solventogenesis, a process by which the butyric and acetic acid products of classical sugar fermentation are oxidized into acetone and butanol. The production of acetone by acetoacetate decarboxylase containing bacteria was utilized in large-scale industrial syntheses in the first half of the twentieth century. In the 1960s, the industry replaced this process with more efficient chemical syntheses of acetone.
Acetoacetate decarboxylase has been found and studied in the following bacteria:
- Bacillus polymyxa
- Chromobacterium violaceum
- Clostridium acetobutylicum
- Clostridium beijerinckii
- Clostridium cellulolyticum
- Pseudomonas putida
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)