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Designing Microbial Cell Factories for the Production of Chemicals
Jae Sung Cho1,2,3, Gi Bae Kim1,2, Hyunmin Eun1,2
1Metabolic and Biomolecular Engineering National Research Laboratory and Systems Metabolic Engineering and Systems Healthcare Cross-Generation Collaborative Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (BK21 four), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
Microbial cell factories offer a sustainable alternative for chemical production from biomass. This perspective reviews engineering strategies and challenges for advancing these cell factories for industrial applications.
Area of Science:
- Biotechnology
- Synthetic Biology
- Metabolic Engineering
Background:
- Addressing environmental concerns from fossil fuel dependence necessitates sustainable chemical production.
- Microbial cell factories are engineered microorganisms for producing chemicals from renewable biomass.
- Biosynthetic pathways are key to microbial chemical production, categorized as native-existing, nonnative-existing, or nonnative-created.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review recent trends in engineering microbial cell factories for sustainable chemical production.
- To discuss systems metabolic engineering strategies for optimizing microbial performance.
- To identify current and future challenges in advancing microbial cell factory technology.
Main Methods:
- Leveraging native-existing biosynthetic pathways.
- Discovering and engineering nonnative-existing pathways.
- Designing novel de novo pathways.
- Applying systems metabolic engineering strategies.
Main Results:
- Highlighting key approaches and successful case studies in microbial cell factory engineering.
- Discussing current trends in design tools and strategies for systems metabolic engineering.
- Surveying challenges and future directions for sustainable chemical production.
Conclusions:
- Microbial cell factories are crucial for sustainable chemical production from renewable resources.
- Advancements in pathway engineering and systems metabolic engineering are key to industrial viability.
- Overcoming current challenges is essential for the future of microbial cell factories.
