Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 18, 2026

Light-Controlled Fermentations for Microbial Chemical and Protein Production
Published on: March 22, 2022
Production of chemicals using dynamic control of metabolic fluxes
1Department of Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA.
Abstract:
Engineered microbial cell factories are constantly experiencing metabolic imbalance due to nutrients depletion, metabolites buildup, evolutionary pressure or genetic instability. It is important to equip the engineered cell factory with sensor-regulator system to enable cell adjust metabolism and respond to the changing environment. Dynamically allocating cellular resources and optimally controlling pathway expression have proved as promising strategies to manage the tradeoff between cell growth and product formation as well as improve the cost-competitiveness of industrial fermentation. With metabolite-responsive transcriptional factors as basic tools, metabolic engineers are well positioned to engineer robust cell factories that achieve self-adaptation or autonomous control for both biotechnological and biomedical applications. In this review, we present promising dynamic control strategies that have been successfully applied to pathway optimization and chemical manufacturing.
Related Concept Videos
Operon Model
Regulation of Metabolism
Biosynthesis in Bacteria
Metabolism of Chemolithotrophs
Introduction to Metabolism
Non-equilibrium in the Cell

