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06:53
In Vivo Monitoring of Transcriptional Activity During Metabolic Transition Using a Bioluminescent Reporter in Yeast
Published on: February 21, 2025
880
Rewiring microbial metabolism through post-translational switches.
Xianhao Xu1, Yang Li1, Jiaheng Liu1
1Key Laboratory of Carbohydrate Chemistry and Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China; Science Center for Future Foods, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China.
Trends in Biotechnology
|October 24, 2025
Summary
New tools offer precise control over microbial metabolism. This review covers protein degradation, spatial regulation, and allosteric switches for advanced metabolic engineering.
Area of Science:
- Synthetic Biology
- Metabolic Engineering
- Biotechnology
Background:
- Microbial cell factories are crucial for sustainable chemical production.
- Precise control over metabolic pathways is essential for optimizing production.
- Post-translational modifications offer dynamic regulatory mechanisms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically review current post-translational regulatory tools for metabolic engineering.
- To highlight emerging strategies for dynamic metabolic control in microbes.
- To provide insights for developing next-generation regulatory systems.
Main Methods:
- Review of literature on protein degradation tags.
- Analysis of spatial regulation techniques (natural and synthetic compartments).
- Examination of allosteric switch engineering (computational and de novo design).
Main Results:
- Protein degradation tags enable tunable control of enzyme abundance.
- Subcellular compartmentalization allows for spatial regulation of metabolic enzymes.
- Allosteric switches offer a means to engineer enzyme activity.
- Emerging tools focus on orthogonality, efficiency, and cross-species compatibility.
Conclusions:
- Post-translational regulatory tools are advancing rapidly for metabolic engineering.
- These tools provide dynamic control over enzyme levels, localization, and activity.
- Future developments aim for more sophisticated and versatile regulatory systems in microbial factories.
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