Review Article | Open Access

Volume 2022 |Article ID 9871087 | https://doi.org/10.34133/2022/9871087

Transporter Engineering in Microbial Cell Factory Boosts Biomanufacturing Capacity

Xiaodong Lv,¹ Haijie Xue,¹ Lei Qin iD ,^2,3 Chun Li iD ^1,2,3

¹Key Laboratory of Medical Molecule Science and Pharmaceutics Engineering, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Institute of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China
²Key Lab for Industrial Biocatalysis, Ministry of Education, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
³Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Abstract

Microbial cell factories (MCFs) are typical and widely used platforms in biomanufacturing for designing and constructing synthesis pathways of target compounds in microorganisms. In MCFs, transporter engineering is especially significant for improving the biomanufacturing efficiency and capacity through enhancing substrate absorption, promoting intracellular mass transfer of intermediate metabolites, and improving transmembrane export of target products. This review discusses the current methods and strategies of mining and characterizing suitable transporters and presents the cases of transporter engineering in the production of various chemicals in MCFs.