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Updated: Dec 9, 2025

Characterization of Membrane Transporters by Heterologous Expression in E. coli and Production of Membrane Vesicles
Published on: December 31, 2019
Transporter engineering in microbial cell factories: the ins, the outs, and the in-betweens
Steven A van der Hoek1, Irina Borodina1
1The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
Abstract:
Engineering the transport of small molecules is an effective approach to improve the performance of microbial cell factories. Transporter engineering can improve the utilization of low-cost alternative substrates, reduce the loss of pathway intermediates, and increase the titer and production rate of the target product. However, transporters are not commonly engineered in strain development programs because the functions of most of the transport proteins are not known. In the recent years, a variety of methods have been developed for identification of transporters for specific substrates and for characterizing transport mechanisms. This review presents recent examples of successful transport engineering for cell factories and discusses the methods for transporter identification and characterization.
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