Artificial multi-enzyme cascades and whole-cell transformation for bioconversion of C1 compounds: Advances, challenge and perspectives

Artificial multi-enzyme cascades bear great potential for bioconversion of C1 compounds to value-added chemicals.Over the past decade,massive efforts have been devoted to constructing multi-enzyme cascades to produce glycolic acid,rare functional sugars and even starch from C1 compounds.However,in contrast to traditional fermentation utilizing C1 compounds with the expectation of competitive economic performance in future industrialization,multi-enzyme cascades systems in the proof-of-concept phase are facing the challenges of upscaling.Here,we offered an overview of the recent advances in the construction of in vitro multi-enzyme cascades and whole-cell transformation using C1 compounds as substrate.In addition,the existing challenges and possible solutions were also discussed aiming to combine the strengths of in vitro and in vivo multi-enzyme cascades systems for upscaling.

Efficient fatty acid synthesis from methanol in methylotrophic yeast

Methanol is an attractive C1 feedstock with high abundance and low cost in bio-manufacturing.However,the metabolic construction of cell factories to utilize methanol for chemicals production remains a challenge due to the toxic intermediates and complicated metabolic pathways.The group of Zhou rescued methylotrophic yeast from cell death and achieved high-level production of free fatty acids from methanol through a combination of adaptive laboratory evolution,rational metabolic engineering and multi-omics analysis.