Metabolic engineering

Metabolic engineering deliberately modifies cellular metabolism to improve production or create desired compounds. It combines genetic changes with analysis of how those changes affect cellular pathways and behavior.

Metabolic pathway: A sequence of enzyme-catalyzed reactions that transforms molecules within a cell. Engineering redirects these reaction sequences toward desired products.
Enzyme: A biological catalyst that accelerates a chemical reaction without being consumed. Engineered pathways depend on enzymes to carry out each conversion.
Industrial biotechnology: The use of biological systems to manufacture products at industrial scale. Metabolic engineering supplies production strains for industrial bioprocesses.
Directed evolution: A method that improves biological molecules or organisms through repeated variation and selection. It selects useful traits rather than specifying pathway changes directly.
Biomanufacturing: The production of materials or chemicals using cells, enzymes, or other biological systems. Engineered metabolism can make biological manufacturing more productive or versatile.
Flux balance analysis: A mathematical method that estimates metabolic reaction rates under mass-balance and other constraints. It predicts how pathway edits may redistribute cellular reaction flows.
Gene expression: The process by which information in a gene produces a functional RNA or protein. Changing enzyme abundance often begins by tuning the genes that encode it.
Biofuel: A fuel produced from biomass or biological processes. Engineered microbes can convert renewable feedstocks into fuel molecules.
Protein engineering: The design or modification of proteins to alter their properties or functions. It targets individual proteins, while metabolic engineering targets cellular production networks.
Life-cycle assessment: A method for evaluating environmental impacts across a product’s life cycle. It tests whether biological production reduces impacts beyond the factory.

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