title: Biofuel metabolic engineering with biosensors.
abstract: Metabolic engineering offers the potential to renewably produce important classes of chemicals, particularly biofuels, at an industrial scale. DNA synthesis and editing techniques can generate large pathway libraries, yet identifying the best variants is slow and cumbersome. Traditionally, analytical methods like chromatography and mass spectrometry have been used to evaluate pathway variants, but such techniques cannot be performed with high throughput. Biosensors - genetically encoded components that actuate a cellular output in response to a change in metabolite concentration - are therefore a promising tool for rapid and high-throughput evaluation of candidate pathway variants. Applying biosensors can also dynamically tune pathways in response to metabolic changes, improving balance and productivity. Here, we describe the major classes of biosensors and briefly highlight recent progress in applying them to biofuel-related metabolic pathway engineering.
authors: Department of Molecular & Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
authors: Stacy-Anne
authors: SA
authors: Morgan
authors: Department of Molecular & Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
authors: Dana C
authors: DC
authors: Nadler
authors: Department of Molecular & Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
authors: Rayka
authors: R
authors: Yokoo
authors: Department of Molecular & Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Energy Biosciences Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. Electronic address: dsavage@berkeley.edu.
authors: David F
authors: DF
authors: Savage
mesh_terms: D056804:Biofuels; D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D031541:Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer; D060847:Metabolic Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D012313:RNA / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D056804:Biofuels; D012313:RNA