Biotechnology Bulletin ›› 2017, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (1): 1-11.doi: 10.13560/j.cnki.biotech.bull.1985.2017.01.001

• Orignal Article •     Next Articles

Metabolite Biosensor:A Useful Synthetic Biology Tool to Assist the Construction of Microbial Cell Factory

ZHOU Yi-kang, WU Yi-nan, WANG Tian-min, ZHENG Xiang, XING Xin-hui, ZHANG Chong   

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering,Tsinghua University,Key Lab of Industrial Biocatalysis of Ministry of Education,Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology,Tsinghua University,Beijing 100084
  • Received:2016-12-19 Online:2017-01-25 Published:2017-01-19

Abstract: Metabolite biosensor,which represents a useful synthetic biology tool,can sense the concentration of intracellular metabolites and then transfer it into specific signal output,showing great potential in the construction of microbial cell factory. It generally consists of two components,biological recognition element and signal output element. The former,typified by regulatory elements,is ubiquitous in nature,such as transcription factor and riboswitch,and has diverse response mechanism. The output can be fluorescence signals,fitness,pathway activation or silence,and so on. Here we reviewed recent progresses about applications of metabolite biosensor in the construction of microbial cell factory,including high-throughput screen/selection,dynamic control and non-genetic selection. We also discussed the effects of the metabolite biosensor performance in application and focused on the opportunities and challenges we might meet in practice.

Key words: metabolite biosensor, response mechanism, performance, microbial cell factory