Title:Protein design in systems metabolic engineering for industrial strain development

Presenter:Dr. CHEN Zhen

University: Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg, Germany

Time: 10:00-11:00, August 30, 2012

Venue:Room A202, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Abstract:

Systems metabolic engineering has become the new frontier of modern industrial strain development for synthesis of high-value added compounds. While the understanding of systems metabolism has been expanded to systems level, most of current toolboxes of metabolic engineering mainly relies on the modification of enzyme concentration from genetic level. These approaches, however, are not efficient in removing the inherent limitations of strain performance which are based on protein level, such as substrate and product inhibition, enzyme promiscuity or specificity. In this presentation, our efforts to develop new tools of protein design and to apply these tools in metabolic engineering to overcome the limitations will be introduced. More specifically, I will discuss how protein design could be used to to overcome some key obstacles towards amino acids production, with regard to: (i) feedback inhibition of enzymes; (ii) precursor supply; (iii) cofactor generation; and (iv) dynamic control of byproduct synthesis.