Metabolic engineering

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Metabolic engineering is the practice of optimizing genetic and regulatory processes within cells to increase the cells' production of a certain substance. Metabolic engineers commonly work to reduce cellular energy use (ie, the energetic cost of cell reproduction or proliferation) and to reduce waste production. Producing beer, wine, cheese, pharmaceuticals, and other biotechnology products often involves metabolic engineering.

Cells are complex systems; genetic and regulatory changes can have drastic effects on the cells' ability to survive. Therefore, trade-offs become apparent during metabolic engineering.

Decreasing cellular energy use

Metabolic engineering can be useful in industry. Certain industries use cells to create useful products. Producing the greatest number of those cells is a sought-after goal. The only known method of production, however, may involve oxidizing of carbon compounds. The carbon compounds may be in limited supply. Therefore, engineering cells to reproduce or proliferate more rapidly given the same amount of carbon compounds would mean greater industrial efficiency.

The role of Methylophilus methylotrophus in the animal feed industry is an example. M. methylotrophus uses methanol to produce certain proteins used in animal feed. Producing greater masses of proteins using the same mass of methanol would increase efficiency. Windass, et al. (1980) accomplished this by silencing genes in M. methylotrophus and inserting genes from E. coli. This example of metabolic engineering resulted in an organism capable of using a lesser mass of adenosine triphosphate to produce the same mass of glutamate.

References

• Stephanopoulos, G. N., Aristidou, A. A., Nielsen, J. (1998). "Metabolic Engineering: Principles and Methodologies". San Diego: Academic Press.
• Domach, M. M. (2004). Introduction to biomedical engineering. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall.
• Windass, J. D. & Worsey, M. J. & Pioli, E. M. & Pioli, D. & Barth, P. T. & Atherton, K. T. & Dart, E. C. & Byrom, D. & Powell, K. & Senior, P. J. (1980). Improved conversion of methanol to single-cell protein by Methylophilus methylotrophus. In Nature, 287, 396 – 401.

See also

• Bioreactor
• Bacterial transformation
• Genetic engineering

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