Metabolic engineering

The ultimate goal of metabolic engineering is to be able to use these organisms to produce valuable substances on an industrial scale in a cost-effective manner.

Therefore, trade-offs in metabolic engineering arise between the cells ability to produce the desired substance and its natural survival needs.

This technique analyzes the metabolic pathway of a microorganism, and determines the constraints and their effects on the production of desired compounds.

[9] It was determined through metabolic flux analysis that the theoretical maximal yield of DAHP per glucose molecule utilized, was 3/7.

According to the Biotechnology Industry Organization, "more than 50 biorefinery facilities are being built across North America to apply metabolic engineering to produce biofuels and chemicals from renewable biomass which can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions".

[10] Metabolic engineering continues to evolve in efficiency and processes aided by breakthroughs in the field of synthetic biology and progress in understanding metabolite damage and its repair or preemption.

[11][12] Researchers in synthetic biology optimize genetic pathways, which in turn influence cellular metabolic outputs.

Recent decreases in cost of synthesized DNA and developments in genetic circuits help to influence the ability of metabolic engineering to produce desired outputs.

Reference books and online databases are used to research reactions and metabolic pathways that are able to produce this product or result.

These databases contain copious genomic and chemical information including pathways for metabolism and other cellular processes.

The completed metabolic pathway is modeled mathematically to find the theoretical yield of the product or the reaction fluxes in the cell.

Labeling patterns may be measured using techniques such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) along with computational algorithms to determine reaction fluxes.