Perspective abstract
Nature Chemical Biology 2, 674 - 681 (2006)
Published online: 15 November 2006 | doi:10.1038/nchembio836
Production of isoprenoid pharmaceuticals by engineered microbes
Michelle C Y Chang1 & Jay D Keasling1
Abstract
Throughout human history, natural products have been the foundation for the discovery and development of therapeutics used to treat diseases ranging from cardiovascular disease to cancer. Their chemical diversity and complexity have provided structural scaffolds for small-molecule drugs and have consistently served as inspiration for medicinal design. However, the chemical complexity of natural products also presents one of the main roadblocks for production of these pharmaceuticals on an industrial scale. Chemical synthesis of natural products is often difficult and expensive, and isolation from their natural sources is also typically low yielding. Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering offer an alternative approach that is becoming more accessible as the tools for engineering microbes are further developed. By reconstructing heterologous metabolic pathways in genetically tractable host organisms, complex natural products can be produced from inexpensive sugar starting materials through large-scale fermentation processes. In this Perspective, we discuss ongoing research aimed toward the production of terpenoid natural products in genetically engineered Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
- Michelle C.Y. Chang and Jay D. Keasling are in the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-3224, USA. Jay D. Keasling is also in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Department of Bioengineering, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA and the Physical Bioscience Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Correspondence to: Jay D Keasling1 e-mail: keasling@berkeley.edu
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