title: Rapid and high-throughput construction of microbial cell-factories with regulatory noncoding RNAs.
abstract: Due to global crises such as pollution and depletion of fossil fuels, sustainable technologies based on microbial cell-factories have been garnering great interest as an alternative to chemical factories. The development of microbial cell-factories is imperative in cutting down the overall manufacturing cost. Thus, diverse metabolic engineering strategies and engineering tools have been established to obtain a preferred genotype and phenotype displaying superior productivity. However, these tools are limited to only a handful of genes with permanent modification of a genome and significant labor costs, and this is one of the bottlenecks associated with biofactory construction. Therefore, a groundbreaking rapid and high-throughput engineering tool is needed for efficient construction of microbial cell-factories. During the last decade, copious small noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) have been discovered in bacteria. These are involved in substantial regulatory roles like transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene regulation by modulating mRNA elongation, stability, or translational efficiency. Because of their vulnerability, ncRNAs can be used as another layer of conditional control over gene expression without modifying chromosomal sequences, and hence would be a promising high-throughput tool for metabolic engineering. Here, we review successful design principles and applications of ncRNAs for high-throughput metabolic engineering or physiological studies of diverse industrially important microorganisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Gyeonggi-do 446-701, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Amit Kumar
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Chaudhary
authors.affiliation: School of Integrative Engineering, Chung-Ang University, 84 Heukseok-ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul 156-756, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: blisszen@cau.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Dokyun
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Na
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Gyeonggi-do 446-701, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: eunylee@khu.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Eun Yeol
authors.initials: EY
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D020868:Gene Silencing; D057166:High-Throughput Screening Assays; D007218:Industrial Microbiology; D060847:Metabolic Engineering; D022661:RNA, Untranslated / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D058615:Synthetic Biology
chemical_list: D022661:RNA, Untranslated
keywords: Gene silencing; High-throughput; Metabolic engineering; Microbial factory; Noncoding RNA; Small regulatory RNA; Synthetic RNA; Synthetic biology