Engineering metabolism through dynamic control

Abstract

Metabolic engineering has proven crucial for the microbial production of valuable chemicals. Due to the rapid development of tools in synthetic biology, there has been recent interest in the dynamic regulation of flux through metabolic pathways to overcome some of the issues arising from traditional strategies lacking dynamic control. There are many diverse implementations of dynamic control, with a range of metabolite sensors and inducers being used. Furthermore, control has been implemented at the transcriptional, translational and post-translational levels. Each of these levels have unique sets of engineering tools, and allow for control at different dynamic time-scales. In order to extend the applications of dynamic control, new tools are required to improve the dynamics of regulatory circuits. Further study and characterization of circuit robustness is also needed to improve their applicability to industry. The successful implementation of dynamic control, using technologies that are amenable to commercialization, will be a fundamental step in advancing metabolic engineering.