Strategies to increase tolerance and robustness of industrial microorganisms
Journal article, 2022

The development of a cost-competitive bioprocess requires that the cell factory converts the feedstock into the product of interest at high rates and yields. However, microbial cell factories are exposed to a variety of different stresses during the fermentation process. These stresses can be derived from feedstocks, metabolism, or industrial production processes, limiting production capacity and diminishing competitiveness. Improving stress tolerance and robustness allows for more efficient production and ultimately makes a process more economically viable. This review summarises general trends and updates the most recent developments in technologies to improve the stress tolerance of microorganisms. We first look at evolutionary, systems biology and computational methods as examples of non-rational approaches. Then we review the (semi-)rational approaches of membrane and transcription factor engineering for improving tolerance phenotypes. We further discuss challenges and perspectives associated with these different approaches.

Transcription factor engineering

Systems biology

Membrane engineering

Genome-scale model

Toxicity

Novel synthetic biology tools

Author

Marta Tous Mohedano

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Oliver Konzock

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Yun Chen

Chalmers, Biology and Biological Engineering, Systems and Synthetic Biology

Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology

2405-805X (eISSN)

Vol. 7 1 533-540

Subject Categories

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Microbiology

DOI

10.1016/j.synbio.2021.12.009

PubMed

35024480

More information

Latest update

1/10/2022