Using a genome-scale metabolic model of Enterococcus faecalis V583 to assess amino acid uptake and its impact on central metabolism.

Increasing antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria necessitates the development of new medication strategies. Interfering with the metabolic network of the pathogen can provide novel drug targets but simultaneously requires a deeper and more detailed organism-specific understanding of the metabolism, which is often surprisingly sparse. In light of this, we reconstructed a genome-scale metabolic model of the pathogen Enterococcus faecalis V583.

Exploring metabolic engineering design principles for the photosynthetic production of lactic acid by Synechocystis sp. PCC6803.

Background: Molecular engineering of the intermediary physiology of cyanobacteria has become important for the sustainable production of biofuels and commodity compounds from CO2 and sunlight by "designer microbes." The chemical commodity product L-lactic acid can be synthesized in one step from a key intermediary metabolite of these organisms, pyruvate, catalyzed by a lactate dehydrogenase. Synthetic biology engineering to make "designer microbes" includes the introduction and overexpression of the product-forming biochemical pathway.

On the use of metabolic control analysis in the optimization of cyanobacterial biosolar cell factories.

Oxygenic photosynthesis will have a key role in a sustainable future. It is therefore significant that this process can be engineered in organisms such as cyanobacteria to construct cell factories that catalyze the (sun)light-driven conversion of CO2 and water into products like ethanol, butanol, or other biofuels or lactic acid, a bioplastic precursor, and oxygen as a byproduct. It is of key importance to optimize such cell factories to maximal efficiency.