Content area
Full Text
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s00253-015-7090-3&domain=pdf
Web End = Appl Microbiol Biotechnol (2016) 100:7990 DOI 10.1007/s00253-015-7090-3
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s00253-015-7090-3&domain=pdf
Web End = http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s00253-015-7090-3&domain=pdf
Web End = http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s00253-015-7090-3&domain=pdf
Web End = http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s00253-015-7090-3&domain=pdf
Web End = http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s00253-015-7090-3&domain=pdf
Web End = http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s00253-015-7090-3&domain=pdf
Web End = http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s00253-015-7090-3&domain=pdf
Web End = MINI-REVIEW
Transcription factor-based biosensors in biotechnology: current state and future prospects
Regina Mahr1 & Julia Frunzke1
Received: 8 August 2015 /Revised: 8 October 2015 /Accepted: 13 October 2015 /Published online: 31 October 2015 # The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract Living organisms have evolved a plethora of sensing systems for the intra- and extracellular detection of small molecules, ions or physical parameters. Several recent studies have demonstrated that these principles can be exploited to devise synthetic regulatory circuits for metabolic engineering strategies. In this context, transcription factors (TFs) controlling microbial physiology at the level of transcription play a major role in biosensor design, since they can be implemented in synthetic circuits controlling gene expression in dependency of, for example, small molecule production. Here, we review recent progress on the utilization of TF-based biosensors in microbial biotechnology highlighting different areas of application. Recent advances in metabolic engineering reveal TF-based sensors to be versatile tools for strain and enzyme development using high-throughput (HT) screening strategies and adaptive laboratory evolution, the optimization of heterologous pathways via the implementation of dynamic control circuits and for the monitoring of single-cell productivity in live cell imaging studies. These examples underline the immense potential of TF-based biosensor circuits but also identify limitations and room for further optimization.
Keywords Transcriptional regulator . Biosensor . Metabolic engineering . Screening . Evolution . Single-cell analysis
Introduction
In the last century, the era of metabolic engineering resulted in an enormous increase in microbial processes for the production of value-added compounds, such as proteins, amino acids, biofuels, organic acids and polymer precursors. Based on renewable feedstocks, the efficient establishment and optimization of bioprocesses is the key to a transition from the currently petroleum-dependent and energy-intensive chemical industry towards a sustainable bioeconomy.
Exploiting microorganisms for large-scale production requires, on the one hand, elaborated high-throughput (HT) tools for strain engineering, and, on the other hand, techniques for analyzing the performance of producer strains and the efficiency of bioprocesses. Recent studies using metabolic flux...