title: Old obstacles and new horizons for microbial chemical production.
abstract: Microorganisms appear as ideal catalysts for chemical conversions. Diverse metabolic routes seem to open doors to the whole range of chemistry. Indeed, a vast amount of scientific papers suggesting new microbial cell factories for old and new products is published every year. However, only very few of them reached industrial relevance. Chemical balances and some metabolic tricks allow natural microorganisms the efficient production of some chemicals, but not others. So first of all it is important to choose metabolically feasible products of value for synthetic chemistry. Here we see a clear task for the chemical and biotechnology industries to communicate for defining the right target molecules. Finally, despite our limited current knowledge, synthetic biology points to a future independent from natural strain backgrounds.
authors.affiliation: University of Milano Bicocca, Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences, Piazza della Scienza 2, 20126 Milan, Italy. Electronic address: danilo.porro@unimib.it.
authors.forename: Danilo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Porro
authors.affiliation: University of Milano Bicocca, Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences, Piazza della Scienza 2, 20126 Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Branduardi
authors.affiliation: BOKU-VIBT University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Department of Biotechnology, Muthgasse 18, 1190 Vienna, Austria; Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (ACIB GmbH), Muthgasse 11, 1190 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sauer
authors.affiliation: BOKU-VIBT University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Department of Biotechnology, Muthgasse 18, 1190 Vienna, Austria; Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (ACIB GmbH), Muthgasse 11, 1190 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Diethard
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mattanovich
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000378:metabolism*; D001709:Biotechnology; D005658:Fungi / Q000145:classification / Q000378:metabolism*; D007218:Industrial Microbiology; D053858:Metabolic Networks and Pathways; D011108:Polymers / Q000378:metabolism; D058615:Synthetic Biology
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers