DetSpace: a web server for engineering detectable pathways for bio-based chemical production

Tackling climate change challenges requires replacing current chemical industrial processes through the rational and sustainable use of biodiversity resources. To that end, production routes to key bio-based chemicals for the bioeconomy have been identified. However, their production still remains inefficient in terms of titers, rates, and yields; because of the hurdles found when scaling up. In order to make production more efficient, strategies like automated screening and dynamic pathway regulation through biosensors have been applied as part of strain optimization. However, to date, no systematic way exists to design a genetic circuit that is responsive to concentrations of a given target compound. Here, the DetSpace web server provides a set of integrated tools that allows a user to select and design a biological circuit that performs the sensing of a molecule of interest by its enzymatic conversion to a detectable molecule through a transcription factor. In that way, the DetSpace web server allows synthetic biologists to easily design biosensing routes for the dynamic regulation of metabolic pathways in applications ranging from genetic circuits design, screening, production, and bioremediation of bio-based chemicals, to diagnostics and drug delivery.