Metabolic engineering

Metabolic engineering

Metabolic engineering is the reconstruction and optimization of biosynthetic pathways in model organisms, modifying the host’s genome to create a robust “cellular factory” carefully tuned to efficiently carry out a specific task. Using recombinant or novel genes or gene circuits, metabolic pathways are modified or introduced into genomes of microbe hosts like E. coli or yeast. These genetically engineered hosts are routinely employed to more effectively produce valuable biomolecules for a variety of biomedical, industrial, and research applications. Before the advancement of gene editing techniques and gene synthesis, metabolic engineering required painstaking purification or chemical synthesis processes that resulted in low yield and poor specificity.