The butyrogenic genes from Clostridium difficile DSM 1296 T have been cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. The enzymes acetyl-coenzyme A (CoA) C-acetyltransferase, 3-hydroxybutyryl-CoA dehydrogenase, crotonase, phosphate butyryltransferase, and butyrate kinase and the butyryl-CoA dehydrogenase complex composed of the dehydrogenase and two electron-transferring flavoprotein subunits were individually produced in E. coli and kinetically characterized in vitro. While most of these enzymes were measured using well-established test systems, novel methods to determine butyrate kinase and butyryl-CoA dehydrogenase activities with respect to physiological function were developed. Subsequently, the individual genes were combined to form a single plasmid-encoded operon in a plasmid vector, which was successfully used to confer butyrate-forming capability to the host. In vitro and in vivo studies demonstrated that C. difficile possesses a bifurcating butyryl-CoA dehydrogenase which catalyzes the NADH-dependent reduction of ferredoxin coupled to the reduction of crotonyl-CoA also by NADH. Since the reoxidation of ferredoxin by a membrane-bound ferredoxin:NAD ؉ -oxidoreductase enables electron transport phosphorylation, additional ATP is formed. The butyryl-CoA dehydrogenase from C. difficile is oxygen stable and apparently uses oxygen as a cooxidant of NADH in the presence of air. These properties suggest that this enzyme complex might be well suited to provide butyryl-CoA for solventogenesis in recombinant strains. The central role of bifurcating butyryl-CoA dehydrogenases and membrane-bound ferredoxin:NAD oxidoreductases (Rhodobacter nitrogen fixation [RNF]), which affect the energy yield of butyrate fermentation in the clostridial metabolism, is discussed. G enome sequencing of organisms provides information regarding the distribution of genes encoding biotechnologically important metabolic pathways. This is true for the clostridial butyrogenic pathway, which converts acetyl-conenzyme A (CoA)-the terminal oxidation product of glucose via glycolysis-to butyrate. Genes encoding enzymes from this pathway are widespread in genome-sequenced clostridia and related species (1-8). In spite of the central importance of butyrate-forming genes in these organisms, only individual enzymes from a comparably small selection of organisms have been purified and carefully studied in the past (9-15). In particular, Clostridium acetobutylicum enzymes were of great interest due to the organism's capability of producing acetone and butanol (16)(17)(18). Driven by the urgent need to replace oil-derived fossil fuels, genetic engineering of microbes for production of butan-1-ol, a promising alternative transportation fuel, is proceeding worldwide (16,(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24).A long-known metabolic route such as the butyrate pathway (Fig. 1A) can suddenly gain fundamentally new meanings when hitherto-unknown properties of individual enzymes within this pathway become known. While for decades the role of butyrate formation was generally a...