靛蓝的微生物合成研究新进展

Recent Advances in Microbial Synthesis of Indigo

靛蓝是一种广泛应用于印染、医药等行业的有机色素,利用微生物法合成靛蓝已引起国内外学者的广泛关注.本文综述了微生物法合成靛蓝的研究进展及动态.靛蓝的微生物合成可归纳为3个阶段:野生型微生物催化合成、基因工程菌全细胞催化转化及代谢工程调控转化.多数芳烃降解菌及其编码酶均具备催化吲哚合成靛蓝的能力,采用定向进化、宏基因组技术以及两相体系等对已知酶资源进行深尺度研究,将为靛蓝生物合成过程注入新的活力.同时,靛蓝合成过程中产生的羟基吲哚及靛蓝衍生物是新型药物及化工中间体,也具有较大的研究价值.然而,由于靛蓝合成过程涉及的中间产物及副产物间转化关系及合成脉络仍不明晰,靛蓝产率低,因此将分子生物学及代谢工程手段融入到靛蓝合成机理及产业化应用的探索将成为该方向的研究重点.

Indigo is one of the organic pigments which is widely used in printing,dyeing and pharmaceutical industries.Microbial synthesis of indigo has recently attracted extensive attention worldwide.The research processes and development trends are reviewed in the present paper.Biosynthesis of indigo could be divided into three periods： Biosynthesis by wild microbes,whole-cell catalysis by engineering bacteria and biotransformation regulated by metabolic engineering.Most aromatic-degrading microbes and their relevant enzymes possess the ability to convert indole to indigo.New technologies such as directed evolution,metagenome and two phase reaction system could facilitate in-depth investigations of the enzyme resources,and they will play a crucial role in the indigo biosynthesis research.Meanwhile,hydroxyl-indoles and indigo derivatives produced in the process are promising pharmaceutical and chemical precursors with great research interests.However,the transformation interactions between intermediates and by-products are still unclear.Besides,low indigo yield and efficiency with high cost have hampered practical production.Therefore,it is essential to combine the molecular biology and metabolic engineering technologies to investigate the mechanisms and industrial application of indigo biosynthesis in the future.