Engineering of a genome-reduced host: Practical application of synthetic biology in the overproduction of desired secondary metabolites

Abstract

Synthetic biology aims to design and build new biological systems with desirable properties, providing the foundation for the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. The most prominent representation of synthetic biology has been used in microbial engineering by recombinant DNA technology. However, there are advantages of using a deleted host, and therefore an increasing number of biotechnology studies follow similar strategies to dissect cellular networks and construct genomereduced microbes. This review will give an overview of the strategies used for constructing and engineering reduced-genome factories by synthetic biology to improve production of secondary metabolites. © 2010 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.