1.
Mannitol: physiological functionalities, determination methods, biotechnological production, and applications.
Chen, M, Zhang, W, Wu, H, Guang, C, Mu, W
Applied microbiology and biotechnology. 2020;(16):6941-6951
Abstract
Mannitol is a naturally occurring six-carbon sugar alcohol that has wide applications in the food and pharmaceutical industry because of its many properties, namely being a natural sweetener with a low metabolism and no glycemic index. The increasing demand for mannitol has spurred many studies of its production. Compared with its chemical synthesis and extraction from plants, both of which are difficult to satisfy for industrial requirements, biotechnological production of mannitol has received considerably more attention and interest from scientists because of its known advantages over those two methods. Accordingly, in this review, we summarize recent advances made in the production of mannitol through various biotechnological methods. The physicochemical properties, sources, and physiological functionalities and applications of mannitol are systematically covered and presented. Then, different determination methods for mannitol are also described and compared. Furthermore, different biotechnological strategies for the production of mannitol via fermentation engineering, protein engineering, and metabolic engineering receive a detailed overview in terms of mannitol-producing strains, enzymes, and their key reaction parameters and conditions. KEY POINTS • Physiological functionalities and applications of mannitol are presented in detail. • Different determination methods for mannitol are also described and compared. • Various biotechnological strategies for the production of mannitol are reviewed.
2.
Genome-scale metabolic model in guiding metabolic engineering of microbial improvement.
Xu, C, Liu, L, Zhang, Z, Jin, D, Qiu, J, Chen, M
Applied microbiology and biotechnology. 2013;(2):519-39
Abstract
In the past few decades, despite all the significant achievements in industrial microbial improvement, the approaches of traditional random mutation and selection as well as the rational metabolic engineering based on the local knowledge cannot meet today's needs. With rapid reconstructions and accurate in silico simulations, genome-scale metabolic model (GSMM) has become an indispensable tool to study the microbial metabolism and design strain improvements. In this review, we highlight the application of GSMM in guiding microbial improvements focusing on a systematic strategy and its achievements in different industrial fields. This strategy includes a repetitive process with four steps: essential data acquisition, GSMM reconstruction, constraints-based optimizing simulation, and experimental validation, in which the second and third steps are the centerpiece. The achievements presented here belong to different industrial application fields, including food and nutrients, biopharmaceuticals, biopolymers, microbial biofuel, and bioremediation. This strategy and its achievements demonstrate a momentous guidance of GSMM for metabolic engineering breeding of industrial microbes. More efforts are required to extend this kind of study in the meantime.