Tag: metabolic engineering

Enzymes with broad substrate specificity may still be useful in specific contexts despite leading to undesired biotransformations in biocatalysis and metabolic engineering

April 8, 2024

Biocatalysis and metabolic engineering is built upon pushing carbon flux down a predetermined pathway route to yield a product. This necessarily require the enlistment of enzymes able to perform each step of the metabolic pathway designed. Typically, enzymes enlisted for the task should have narrow substrate specificity to reduce the possibilities of undesired biotransformations generating … More Enzymes with broad substrate specificity may still be useful in specific contexts despite leading to undesired biotransformations in biocatalysis and metabolic engineering

Plasmid extraction is essential for retrieving the plasmid for downstream applications in qPCR or transformation to another microbial host

April 5, 2024

Plasmid is a small circular piece of chromosome important for delivering genes into a microbial host to effect genetic engineering, and to confer the microbe with new metabolic functions and properties. Typically, an assembled plasmid is transformed into Escherichia coli DH5α to replicate the plasmid to higher copy numbers. Essentially, the E. coli cell is … More Plasmid extraction is essential for retrieving the plasmid for downstream applications in qPCR or transformation to another microbial host

The need for more investment in bioseparation research in support of metabolic engineering and biotechnology

March 16, 2024

Metabolic engineering research has seen tremendous growth over the past 25 years, and has realised the production of many drugs and fuel compounds at least at the lab scale level. It uses a carefully choreographed series of genetic manipulations to endow microbial chassis cells with new and improved metabolic capabilities in aid of product formation. … More The need for more investment in bioseparation research in support of metabolic engineering and biotechnology

Carbon-13 isotope labelling experiments can be implemented in two different ways to track the metabolic route in utilisation of a substrate

February 2, 2024

To show that metabolic flux flows along a designated path in heterologous metabolic engineering or to understand carbon flow within endogenous carbon metabolism, one needs a method for tracking carbon flow along particular pathways. The dominant approach for achieving this task is through carbon-13 isotope labelling. In this method, substrates with labelled carbon-13 atoms provided … More Carbon-13 isotope labelling experiments can be implemented in two different ways to track the metabolic route in utilisation of a substrate

Biofuel production from metabolic engineering approaches requires optimisation prior to reaching commercial scale

September 18, 2023

Biofuels is one of the most successful products of modern biotechnology. Current best in class production capacity would be the use of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for producing bioethanol. But there are other biofuel targets such as butanol or higher carbon number alcohols. To date, these biofuels require more intricate pathways and enzymes for production, and thus, … More Biofuel production from metabolic engineering approaches requires optimisation prior to reaching commercial scale

Opportune moment to redirect synthetic biology’s focus towards bioseparation

August 28, 2023

Much of the past 20 years has seen significant progress in strain engineering and genetic engineering for increasing production titer in metabolic engineering research. But, production titer remain low compared to conventional synthetic organic chemistry synthesis routes. Hence, price of synthetic biology products remains high, and largely uncompetitive compared to products manufactured via conventional methods … More Opportune moment to redirect synthetic biology’s focus towards bioseparation

Synthetic biology research and education is typically hosted by chemical engineering departments

August 21, 2023

Synthetic biology concerns the use of engineering tools such as process engineering and genetic engineering to reprogram microbial cells to produce biofuels, drugs, and speciality chemicals. In the course of doing so, many facets of enzymology such as protein engineering, modulation of gene expression, strain engineering, and biochemical engineering needs to come together holistically to … More Synthetic biology research and education is typically hosted by chemical engineering departments

Production titer in metabolic engineering is limited due to carbon loss to central carbon metabolism

August 15, 2023

Metabolic engineering holds significant promises for green production of biofuels, drugs, and speciality chemicals from sustainable feedstocks such as glucose. But, the field is persistently beset by challenges of low product titer. For example, achieving a production titer of 1 g/L in batch shake flask experiment is a good proof of concept. The key limiting … More Production titer in metabolic engineering is limited due to carbon loss to central carbon metabolism

Manipulation of an organism’s metabolism lies at the heart of metabolic engineering

August 7, 2023

Since 2000s, there has been much interest in the use of metabolic engineering to create organisms able to synthesize a variety of useful chemical compounds such as biofuels, drugs, and speciality chemicals. So, what is metabolic engineering? At the heart of metabolic engineering is a sequence of carefully choreographed genetic engineering steps that express new … More Manipulation of an organism’s metabolism lies at the heart of metabolic engineering

Application potential of substrate utilisation metabolic engineering in biotechnology

July 31, 2023

Glucose is the most common substrate to support metabolic engineering research. But there is a movement in the field of synthetic biology to genetically engineer microbes to use other substrates. This relatively new and hard field is known as substrate utilisation metabolic engineering. Typically, the task to train a native microbe to use an uncommon … More Application potential of substrate utilisation metabolic engineering in biotechnology