Improving production of aromatic compounds in Escherichia coli by metabolic engineering

The efficiency of conversion of raw material to product is a major factor controlling the commercial viability of large-scale fermentation processes for the production of metabolites. Traditional approaches to developing microbial strains for metabolite overproduction have relied on amplifying only the enzymatic steps within the specific biosynthetic pathway of a desired product. While this approach has generally been successful for reaching high product concentrations and yields, further improvements (and hence reduced manufacturing cost) can only be achieved by redirecting carbon flux from central metabolism to the product-forming pathway. Such manipulation of central metabolic pathways promises to deliver a new generation of metabolite-producing microorganisms.