Metabolic engineering of bacteria

Abstract

Yield and productivity are critical for the economics and viability of a bioprocess. In metabolic engineering the main objective is the increase of a target metabolite production through genetic engineering. Metabolic engineering is the practice of optimizing genetic and regulatory processes within cells to increase the production of a certain substance. In the last years, the development of recombinant DNA technology and other related technologies has provided new tools for approaching yields improvement by means of genetic manipulation of biosynthetic pathway. Industrial microorganisms like Escherichia coli, Actinomycetes, etc. have been developed as biocatalysts to provide new or to optimize existing processes for the biotechnological production of chemicals from renewable plant biomass. The factors like oxygenation, temperature and pH have been traditionally controlled and optimized in industrial fermentation in order to enhance metabolite production. Metabolic engineering of bacteria shows a great scope in industrial application as well as such technique may also have good potential to solve certain metabolic disease and environmental problems in near future.

Keywords: Biosynthetic pathway; Metabolic disease; Metabolic network; Recombinant DNA technology.

Fig. 1

Overview of metabolic network

Fig. 2

Stepwise process of metabolic

Fig. 3

Diagram of the episomal vector pBKCMV, the linear map represents the PHB operon of R. eutropha derived from plasmid pBHR68 [14]

Fig. 4

A schematic overview of low metabolic flux analysis fits into development of pharmaceutical production process [27]