Microbial pathway engineering for industrial processes: evolution, combinatorial biosynthesis and rational design

Microbial pathway engineering has made significant progress in multiple are as. Many examples of successful pathway engineering for specialty and fine chemicals have been reported in the past two years. Novel carotenoids and p olyketides have been synthesized using molecular evolution and combinatoria l strategies. In addition, rational design approaches based on metabolic co ntrol have been reported to increase metabolic flux to specific products. E xperimental and computational tools have been developed to aid in design, r econstruction and analysis of non-native pathways. It is expected that a hy brid of evolutionary, combinatorial and rational design approaches will yie ld significant advances in the near future.