Current Progress in Production of Flavonoids using Systems and Synthetic Biology Platforms

Abstract

Flavonoid is an industrially-important compound due to its high pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical values. However, conventional methods in extracting and synthesizing flavonoids are costly, laborious and not sustainable due to small amount of natural flavonoids, large amounts of chemicals and space used. Biotechnological production of flavonoids represents a viable and sustainable route especially through the use of metabolic engineering strategies in microbial production hosts. In this review, we will highlight recent strategies for the improving the production of flavonoids using synthetic biology approaches in particular the innovative strategies of genetically-encoded biosensors for in vivo metabolite analysis and high-throughput screening methods using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). Implementation of transcription factor based-biosensor for microbial flavonoid production and integration of systems and synthetic biology approaches for natural product development will also be discussed.

Enhancing Flavan-3-ol Biosynthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

“…Flavonoid biosynthesis is a critical field of plant secondary metabolism research, pharmaceuticals, and nutraceuticals . With the development of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, , the biosynthesis of flavonoids was first achieved in microorganisms in 2003 . Since then, with increasing knowledge about flavonoid biosynthesis, microbial cell factories have been widely used for the production of flavonoids.…”

Streamlining Natural Products Biomanufacturing With Omics and Machine Learning Driven Microbial Engineering

“…In the Design and Build steps, genes involved in plant and microbial natural products pathways are considered as important genetic parts by which reconstruction and combinatorial expression of the corresponding biosynthetic pathways have yielded a plethora of industrially important natural products and biochemicals in bioengineered microbes. Discovery of key and missing enzymes in plant biosynthetic pathways has been greatly expedited with transcriptome gene mining of non-model plants and expression of the candidate genes in microbial systems ( Goh et al, 2018 ; Ku Bahaudin et al, 2018 ; Pyne et al, 2019 ). Two alkaloid-enriched plants specifically Papaver somniferum (opium poppy) and Catharanthus roseus (Madagascar periwinkle) have emerged as the model medicinal plants with regard to the employment of multi-omics approaches in the comprehensive analysis of the benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs) and monoterpenoid indole alkaloids (MIAs) biosynthetic pathways, respectively ( Facchini and De Luca, 2008 ; Scossa et al, 2018 ).…”

Synthetic Biology and Biosafety Governance in the European Union and the United States

“…It facilitates more accurate gene editing in cheaper and faster ways than older gene editing molecular tools like zinc finger endonucleases. 42 Other applications of synthetic biology include yeast for more efficient production of flavonoids like vanilla used in domestic baking and beer brewing, 43 as well as bacteria for more sustainable supply of coenzyme Q10 food supplement normally produced in limited quantity through yeast fermentation. 44 In the aesthetic sector, a synthetic version of the cosmetics ingredient, squalane, has been engineered.…”