College of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China.
The Key Laboratory of Biotechnology for Medicinal Plants of Jiangsu Province, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou 221116, China.
Biotechnol Adv. 2022 Oct;59:107982. doi: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2022.107982. Epub 2022 May 14.
Microbes have proven to be robust workhorses for the large-scale production of many chemicals. Especially, high-value biochemicals (e.g., natural pigments, unsaturated fatty acids) that cannot be derived from fossil fuels, can be produced by engineered microbes. There is a growing interest in both academia and industry to find new technologies that can enhance the efficiencies of microbial cell factories and boost the circular bioeconomy. Rapid technological innovations, such as microbial genome editing and synthetic biology, have greatly advanced the production of chemicals in engineered microbes. Nanomaterial-based technologies that exploit the unique physiochemical properties of nano-scale materials (e.g., large surface area, excellent catalytic activity, tunable optical and electrical performance) have demonstrated great potential and attracted increasing attention. There are many studies showing that nanomaterials can assist microbes in the synthesis of chemicals by providing micronutrients, inducing anti-ROS responses, promoting gas-liquid mass transfer, immobilizing microbial cells and promoting electron transfer in electrosynthesis. Furthermore, the latest studies demonstrate that nanomaterials can be used to construct photocatalyst-microbe hybrids and achieve solar driven chemical production. In this review, we comprehensively summarize these advances and discuss the current gaps as well as future perspectives. With the rapid development of synthetic biology and nanotechnology, we believe more nanomaterial-based technologies will be developed and used to improve the productivity of microbial cell factories.
微生物已被证明是大规模生产许多化学品的强大工具。特别是，无法从化石燃料中获得的高价值生化物质（例如天然色素、不饱和脂肪酸）可以通过工程微生物生产。学术界和工业界都越来越感兴趣，希望找到能够提高微生物细胞工厂效率并推动循环生物经济的新技术。微生物基因组编辑和合成生物学等快速技术创新极大地推动了工程微生物中化学品的生产。基于纳米材料的技术利用纳米级材料的独特物理化学性质（例如，大表面积、优异的催化活性、可调光学和电学性能），展示了巨大的潜力，并引起了越来越多的关注。有许多研究表明，纳米材料可以通过提供微量营养素、诱导抗 ROS 反应、促进气液传质、固定微生物细胞和促进电合成中的电子转移来帮助微生物合成化学品。此外，最新的研究表明，纳米材料可用于构建光催化剂-微生物杂化体并实现太阳能驱动的化学合成。在这篇综述中，我们全面总结了这些进展，并讨论了当前的差距和未来的展望。随着合成生物学和纳米技术的快速发展，我们相信将开发和使用更多基于纳米材料的技术来提高微生物细胞工厂的生产力。
