ABSTRACT: n-Butanol has been proposed as an alternative biofuel to ethanol, and both Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been engineered to produce it. Unfortunately, n-butanol is more toxic than ethanol to these organisms. To understand the basis for its toxicity, cell wide studies were conducted at the transcript, protein and metabolite levels to obtain a global view of the n-butanol stress response. Analysis of the data indicate that n-butanol stress has components common to other stress responses and includes perturbation in respiratory functions (nuo, cyo operons), oxidative stress (sodC, katG, yqhD), heat shock and cell envelope stress (rpoE, clpB, htpG, degP, cpxPR), metabolite transport (malE, opp operon) and biosynthesis. Inducible expression of the yqhD gene was found to improve the hostâs tolerance to exogenous n-butanol and confirms the role of this gene in coping with butanol stress. To survey for other potential candidates that may serve to improve host tolerance, mutant strains in several candidates which show changes at the transcript and protein levels were examined for sensitivity during butanol exposure. Chassis engineering based on these cues may be required in a high production titer, butanol-producing host. This comparison is between E. coli DH1 cells treated with 0.8% n-butanol and untreated cells at 0, 30, 80, and 195 minutes after addition. 3 biological replicates were grown, total RNA was extracted, labeled, and hybridized on 3 slides for each time point. http://www.microbesonline.org/cgi-bin/microarray/viewExp.cgi?expId=1266