Abstract: Butyric acid is an important industrial chemicals, which has been used widely in food additives and pharmaceutical industry. Nowadays, butyric acid production in industry scale is dominated by chemical synthesis with starting materials derived from crude oil. Compared with organic chemical synthesis, the advantage of microbial fermentation include wide material sources, low energy consumption in fermentation, environmentally friendly, sustainable production with sustainable adding material. The production of butyric acid through microbial fermentation has generated  a favorable business climate. Five issues of butyric acid production with bacteria through fermentation were presented in this review, including the characters of butyric acid, the characters of the butyrate-producing strains, the metabolic pathway and regulation of the butyrate-producing strains, the process of producing butyric acid by fermentation, the utilization of butyrate-producing bacterias and their products. These were good indicatiors for the genetic-engineering of the butyrate-producing bacterias and the optimization of the production process.

Key words: butyric acid, fermentation method, Clostridium butyricum, process mode, metabolic pathway

摘要： 丁酸作为一种重要的化工原料，已经广泛应用于食品添加剂与医药等领域。目前，工业上生产丁酸主要是从石油中提取有机化合物进行化学合成。与有机化合物合成法相比，微生物发酵产丁酸的优势有：所用的原料来源非常广，发酵过程低能耗，不污染环境，而且可以持续添加原料发酵生产丁酸。因此，通过生物技术发酵生产丁酸越来越受到人们的重视。介绍了丁酸的性质、产丁酸菌株的特点、微生物发酵产丁酸的细胞代谢途径及其调控、发酵法生产丁酸的工艺运行方式和产丁酸菌株及其代谢产物的生理功能这五部分内容，以期为今后开展发酵法产丁酸的微生物基因工程改造以及生产工艺的优化提供参考。

关键词: 丁酸, 发酵法, 丁酸梭菌, 工艺运行方式, 代谢途径