{"title":"Into the metabolic wild: Unveiling hidden pathways of microbial metabolism","authors":"Özge Ata, Diethard Mattanovich","doi":"10.1111/1751-7915.14548","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Microbial metabolism has been deeply studied over decades and it is considered to be understood to a great extent. Annotated genome sequences of many microbial species have contributed a lot to generating biochemical knowledge on metabolism. However, researchers still discover novel pathways, unforeseen reactions or unexpected metabolites which contradict to the expected canon of biochemical reactions in living organisms. Here, we highlight a few examples of such non-canonical pathways, how they were found, and what their importance in microbial biotechnology may be. The predictive power of metabolic modelling, well-founded on biochemical knowledge and genomic information is discussed in the light of both discovery of yet unknown existing metabolic routes and the prediction of others, new to Nature.</p>","PeriodicalId":209,"journal":{"name":"Microbial Biotechnology","volume":"17 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11316390/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Microbial Biotechnology","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1751-7915.14548","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Microbial metabolism has been deeply studied over decades and it is considered to be understood to a great extent. Annotated genome sequences of many microbial species have contributed a lot to generating biochemical knowledge on metabolism. However, researchers still discover novel pathways, unforeseen reactions or unexpected metabolites which contradict to the expected canon of biochemical reactions in living organisms. Here, we highlight a few examples of such non-canonical pathways, how they were found, and what their importance in microbial biotechnology may be. The predictive power of metabolic modelling, well-founded on biochemical knowledge and genomic information is discussed in the light of both discovery of yet unknown existing metabolic routes and the prediction of others, new to Nature.
期刊介绍:
Microbial Biotechnology publishes papers of original research reporting significant advances in any aspect of microbial applications, including, but not limited to biotechnologies related to: Green chemistry; Primary metabolites; Food, beverages and supplements; Secondary metabolites and natural products; Pharmaceuticals; Diagnostics; Agriculture; Bioenergy; Biomining, including oil recovery and processing; Bioremediation; Biopolymers, biomaterials; Bionanotechnology; Biosurfactants and bioemulsifiers; Compatible solutes and bioprotectants; Biosensors, monitoring systems, quantitative microbial risk assessment; Technology development; Protein engineering; Functional genomics; Metabolic engineering; Metabolic design; Systems analysis, modelling; Process engineering; Biologically-based analytical methods; Microbially-based strategies in public health; Microbially-based strategies to influence global processes