Pathway engineering for sustainable biomanufacturing: integrating AI, systems biology, enzyme engineering, and...

Sustainable biomanufacturing seeks to replace fossil-fuel-based production with renewable bioeconomies, with microbial cell factories serving as key platforms for producing fuels, chemicals, and high-value products. This review highlights recent advances that have transformed pathway engineering from an empirical practice into a predictive and integrated discipline. Artificial intelligence-assisted retrosynthesis expands biosynthetic route design, while genome-scale metabolic models and host-aware simulations improve pathway evaluation under cellular constraints. Enzyme engineering is increasingly integrated with pathway design through machine learning, high-throughput screening, and cell-free platforms. Dynamic regulation, including biosensor-based feedback systems, further optimizes metabolic performance. Together with automation and design-build-test-learn workflows, these advances establish a multiscale framework that accelerates the development of robust microbial production systems.