Metabolic Engineering and Metabolomics
(For Overproduction of Metabolites)
In earlier chapters, we discussed how proteins can be modified in a desired manner to suit specific needs for their industrial or other specific uses. In these cases, discussed in Chapters 42 and 43, it was argued that the three dimensional structure of a protein largely depended' on the DNA sequence of corresponding gene, which could be suitably modified to get the -desired gene product. However, often we are interested in getting metabolites produced in the cell, at an industrial level, while cellular metabolic networks that evolved in nature are not optimized for practical applications. In such cases, performance of metabolic pathways or bioprocesses can be modified (deregulated) by genetic manipulation of the cell, so that a particular metabolite is overproduced.

Metabolic engineering, not only promises technological benefits, but also contributes to basic science, agriculture and med cine. One should, however, recognize that although in a particular case, metabolic engineering might have been shown to be feasible, the strains thus developed may still be unsuitable for practical yield, so that the limitations may still need to be addressed by subsequent genetic manipulations. In this chapter, we discuss the possibilities, achievements and limitations of the approach of metabolic engineering as another subject of biotechnology.