title: Recent advances in amino acid production by microbial cells.
abstract: Amino acids have been utilized for the production of foods, animal feeds and pharmaceuticals. After the discovery of the glutamic acid-producing bacterium Corynebacterium glutamicum by Japanese researchers, the production of amino acids, which are primary metabolites, has been achieved using various microbial cells as hosts. Recently, metabolic engineering studies on the rational design of amino acid-producing microbial cells have been successfully conducted. Moreover, the technology of systems biology has been applied to metabolic engineering for the creation of amino acid-producing microbial cells. Currently, new technologies including synthetic biology, single-cell analysis, and evolutionary engineering have been utilized to create amino acid-producing microbial cells. In addition, useful compounds from amino acids have been produced by microbial cells. Here, current researches into the metabolic engineering of microbial cells toward production of amino acids and amino acid-related compounds are reviewed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Science and Technology, School of Life Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuta-cho, Midori-ku, Yokohama 226-8501, Japan; Department of Bioinformatic Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University, 1-5 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan; Advanced Low Carbon Technology Research and Development Program, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST, ALCA), Japan.
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hirasawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatic Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University, 1-5 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan; Advanced Low Carbon Technology Research and Development Program, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST, ALCA), Japan. Electronic address: shimizu@ist.osaka-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shimizu
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000378:metabolism*; D048230:Corynebacterium glutamicum / Q000378:metabolism*; D018698:Glutamic Acid / Q000378:metabolism; D060847:Metabolic Engineering / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*; D059010:Single-Cell Analysis; D058615:Synthetic Biology / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends; D049490:Systems Biology
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D018698:Glutamic Acid