Synthetic and semisynthetic metabolic pathways for biofuel production

Abstract

Recently, metabolic engineering is greatly benefited from systems and synthetic biology due to substantial advancements in those fields. The present review aims at importance of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology for production of compounds such as fatty acids, alcohols, and high-value chemicals. The C3 plants, including important food crops like rice, wheat, barley, and soybean overcome RuBisCO's catalytic inefficiency by enriching some of the traits from algal system. Synthetic and semisynthetic energy conversion systems, based on photosynthetic processes, have recently been proposed. They envisioned that thylakoids with modified PSII can be used outside the living cell in potentially vast amounts and without the requirement of complicated isolation procedures. Another approach could be the use of a native and viable photosynthetic system adapted to serve as a direct source of either sustained electrical current or storable chemical energy and perhaps useful, conduit for electron transport. Balancing and optimization of metabolic engineering and systems biology to develop tailor-made microbial factories for the efficient production of chemicals and biofuels might replace products derived from natural sources in the near future.