Metabolic engineering articles within Nature

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    QS-21—an FDA-approved vaccine adjuvant—and several structural analogues of QS-21 can be synthesized in engineered yeast strains, and this process is much less laborious compared with the conventional mode of extraction from the Chilean soapbark tree.

    • Yuzhong Liu
    • , Xixi Zhao
    •  & Jay D. Keasling

  • Article |

    The α-diazoester azaserine can be produced by Streptomyces albus engineered with a biosynthetic gene cluster and act as the carbene precursor for coupling with intracellularly produced styrene to generate unnatural amino acids containing a cyclopropyl group.

    • Jing Huang
    • , Andrew Quest
    •  & Jay D. Keasling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    De novo microbial biosynthesis of vindoline and catharanthine using a highly engineered yeast and in vitro chemical coupling to vinblastine is carried out, positioning yeast as a scalable platform to produce many monoterpene indole alkaloids.

    • Jie Zhang
    • , Lea G. Hansen
    •  & Jay D. Keasling

  • Article |

    The alkaloid drugs hyoscyamine and scopolamine are synthesized from sugars and amino acids in yeast, using 26 genes from yeast, plants, bacteria and animals, protein engineering and a vacuole transporter to enable functional expression of a key acyltransferase.

    • Prashanth Srinivasan
    •  & Christina D. Smolke

  • Letter |

    Saccharomyces cerevisiae bearing engineered alginate and mannitol catabolic pathways can ferment sugars from brown macroalgae to produce ethanol, potentially allowing the use of brown macroalgae as a viable feedstock for the production of biofuels and renewable chemicals.

    • Maria Enquist-Newman
    • , Ann Marie E. Faust
    •  & Yasuo Yoshikuni

  • Letter |

    A non-oxidative, cyclic pathway—termed non-oxidative glycolysis—is designed and constructed that enables complete carbon conservation in sugar catabolism to acetyl-coenzyme A, and can be used to achieve a 100% carbon yield to fuels and chemicals.

    • Igor W. Bogorad
    • , Tzu-Shyang Lin
    •  & James C. Liao

  • Letter |

    Microbes have already been engineered to produce diesel fuels, and now the microbial production of components of petrol (gasoline) including short-chain alkanes has been achieved using Escherichia coli strains metabolically engineered with components of fatty acid biosynthesis pathways.

    • Yong Jun Choi
    •  & Sang Yup Lee

  • Letter |

    Saccharomyces cerevisiae is engineered to produce high concentrations of artemisinic acid, a precursor of the artemisinin used in combination therapies for malaria treatment; an efficient and practical chemical process to convert artemisinic acid to artemisinin is also developed.

    • C. J. Paddon
    • , P. J. Westfall
    •  & J. D. Newman

  • Letter |

    The increasing cost of energy and concerns about the environment have emphasized the need to find new sources of fuel, with the microbial production of high-energy fuels a promising approach. Here, Escherichia coli is engineered to produce more complex biofuels — fatty esters (biodiesel), fatty alcohols and waxes — directly from simple sugars. Some cells are further engineered to express hemicellulases, a step towards producing these compounds directly from hemicellulose.

    • Eric J. Steen
    • , Yisheng Kang
    •  & Jay D. Keasling

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