Institute of Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering, Hamburg University of Technology, Denickestrasse 15, D-21073 Hamburg, Germany.
Trends Biotechnol. 2010 Oct;28(10):534-42. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2010.07.004. Epub 2010 Aug 19.
The future of industrial biotechnology requires efficient development of highly productive and robust strains of microorganisms. Present praxis of strain development cannot adequately fulfill this requirement, primarily owing to the inability to control reactions precisely at a molecular level, or to predict reliably the behavior of cells upon perturbation. Recent developments in two areas of biology are changing the situation rapidly: structural biology has revealed details about enzymes and associated bioreactions at an atomic level; and synthetic biology has provided tools to design and assemble precisely controllable modules for re-programming cellular metabolic circuitry. However, because of different emphases, to date, these two areas have developed separately. A linkage between them is desirable to harness their concerted potential. We therefore propose structural synthetic biotechnology as a new field in biotechnology, specifically for application to the development of industrial microbial strains.
未来的工业生物技术需要高效开发具有高生产力和强稳定性的微生物菌株。目前的菌株开发实践不能充分满足这一要求，主要是因为不能在分子水平上精确控制反应，或者不能可靠地预测细胞在受到干扰时的行为。生物学的两个领域的最新发展正在迅速改变这种情况：结构生物学揭示了酶和相关生物反应在原子水平上的细节；合成生物学提供了设计和组装精确可控模块的工具，用于重新编程细胞代谢途径。然而，由于侧重点不同，迄今为止，这两个领域是分开发展的。希望将它们联系起来，以利用它们的协同潜力。因此，我们提出结构合成生物技术作为生物技术的一个新领域，特别是应用于工业微生物菌株的开发。
