Partial adaption for butanol production

A process for producing an improved culture of cells comprising an engineered butanol biosynthetic pathway:

• a) providing a cell culture of recombinant microorganisms comprising an engineered butanol biosynthetic pathway, wherein the recombinant microorganisms produce butanol;
• b) growing the culture of recombinant microorganisms in a propagation phase wherein the propagation phase is characterized by aerobic conditions and a butanol concentration of about 0 g/L to about 10 g/L;
• and
• c) growing the culture of step b) in a production phase wherein the production phase is characterized by anaerobic conditions and an effective titer of butanol is at least 10 g/L,
• wherein the recombinant microorganism is selected from a genus from the group consisting of Clostridium, Zymomonas, Escherichia, Salmonella, Serratia, Erwinia, Klebsiella, Shigella, Rhodococcus, Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, Enterococcus, Alcaligenes, Paenibacillus, Arthrobacter, Corynebacterium, Brevibacterium, Schizosaccharomyces, Kluveromyces, Yarrowia, Pichia, Zygosaccharomyces, Debaryomyces, Candida, Brettanomyces, Pachysolen, Hansenula, Issatchenkia, Trichosporon, Yamadazyma, and Saccharomyces.