Harnessing the power of microbial metabolism.

Harnessing the power of microbial metabolism. Curr Opin Microbiol. 2016 Mar 26;31:63-69 Authors: Santero E, Floriano B, Govantes F Abstract Microorganisms are rich repositories of genetic material encoding many activities of potential interest. Recent advances make identifying and exploiting the metabolic treasures of uncultured microbes an easier proposition. Improved expression vectors and metagenomic screening techniques make it easier to identify activities of interest. Synthetic biology and efficient genome editing techniques allow microbial genomes to be modified almost without restriction. Computational approaches based on organism-wide analysis of transcription, protein synthesis and metabolic fluxes make it possible to accurately predict the outcome of the metabolic processes and modifications required for optimization. Together these advances represent a major breakthrough in microbial biotechnology that is expected to yield new generations of tailor-made biocatalysts suitable for multiple biotechnological applications. PMID: 27022715 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: research