Joint BioEnergy Institute, 5885 Hollis St, Emeryville, CA, 94608, United States; Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States; Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, United States.
Plant Sci. 2018 Aug;273:84-91. doi: 10.1016/j.plantsci.2018.03.012. Epub 2018 Mar 14.
Humans have domesticated many plant species as indispensable sources of food, materials, and medicines. The dawning era of synthetic biology represents a means to further refine, redesign, and engineer crops to meet various societal and industrial needs. Current and future endeavors will utilize plants as the foundation of a bio-based economy through the photosynthetic production of carbohydrate feedstocks for the microbial fermentation of biofuels and bioproducts, with the end goal of decreasing our dependence on petrochemicals. As our technological capabilities improve, metabolic engineering efforts may expand the utility of plants beyond sugar feedstocks through the direct production of target compounds, including pharmaceuticals, renewable fuels, and commodity chemicals. However, relatively little work has been done to fully realize the potential in redirecting central carbon metabolism in plants for the engineering of novel bioproducts. Although our ability to rationally engineer and manipulate plant metabolism is in its infancy, I highlight some of the opportunities and challenges in applying synthetic biology towards engineering plant primary metabolism.
人类已经驯化了许多植物物种，将其作为不可或缺的食物、材料和药物来源。合成生物学的黎明时代代表了一种进一步改进、重新设计和工程作物以满足各种社会和工业需求的手段。当前和未来的努力将利用植物作为生物经济的基础，通过光合作用生产碳水化合物原料，用于微生物发酵生物燃料和生物制品，最终目标是减少我们对石化产品的依赖。随着我们技术能力的提高，代谢工程的努力可能会通过直接生产目标化合物，包括药品、可再生燃料和大宗商品化学品，扩大植物的用途，超越糖原料。然而，在充分实现通过工程化新型生物制品重新定向植物中心碳代谢的潜力方面，相对较少的工作已经完成。尽管我们合理设计和操纵植物代谢的能力还处于起步阶段，但我强调了在应用合成生物学进行植物初级代谢工程方面的一些机遇和挑战。
