Pub Date : 2026-01-10DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103430
Ajay Gupta , Priti Sharma , Bing Yang
Bacterial type III effector proteins, particularly transcription activator-like effectors (TALEs) secreted by Xanthomonas spp., play critical roles in pathogen–host dynamics. While TALEs facilitate bacterial infections, they also possess vulnerabilities that plants and scientists can exploit to develop mechanisms of resistance. This review encompasses the characteristics and functions of TALEs, examining both their virulence and avirulence roles, and the host plants’ counter-strategies. We highlight advancements in genome editing technologies aimed at combating TALE-dependent plant diseases, with a focus on bacterial blight and leaf streak of rice, but also including bacterial blights of cotton and cassava, and citrus canker. Additionally, we share perspectives on various strategies and approaches for applying genome editing tools to improve disease resistance traits in crop breeding.
{"title":"Reprogramming immunity: TAL effector-informed genome editing in rice and other crops","authors":"Ajay Gupta , Priti Sharma , Bing Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103430","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103430","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Bacterial type III effector proteins, particularly transcription activator-like effectors (TALEs) secreted by <em>Xanthomonas</em> spp., play critical roles in pathogen–host dynamics. While TALEs facilitate bacterial infections, they also possess vulnerabilities that plants and scientists can exploit to develop mechanisms of resistance. This review encompasses the characteristics and functions of TALEs, examining both their virulence and avirulence roles, and the host plants’ counter-strategies. We highlight advancements in genome editing technologies aimed at combating TALE-dependent plant diseases, with a focus on bacterial blight and leaf streak of rice, but also including bacterial blights of cotton and cassava, and citrus canker. Additionally, we share perspectives on various strategies and approaches for applying genome editing tools to improve disease resistance traits in crop breeding.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10833,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in biotechnology","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 103430"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145951598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-10DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103427
Hiroyuki J Kanaya , Koji L Ode , Hiroki R Ueda
Sleep, a universal biological phenomenon, is regulated by multiscale processes, from molecular mechanisms to cellular networks. While the underlying mechanisms, particularly those governing sleep homeostasis, were poorly understood, recent technological breakthroughs have facilitated the identification of molecular and circuit-based mechanisms. Advances in mouse genetics, including next-generation genetics that bypass the need for crossing and postnatal gene knockout methods, enable the comprehensive identification of molecular components for sleep regulation by combining them with noninvasive, large-scale sleep measurements. Elucidated mechanisms include Ca2+-related and protein kinase/phosphatase-mediated signaling, supporting the phosphorylation hypothesis of sleep. The molecular signaling forms ‘cellular sleepiness’ in sleep regulatory neurons to modulate neuronal activity. These integrated understandings of multiscale mechanisms will lead to a system-level understanding of sleep regulation.
{"title":"The systems biology of sleep: toward integrative understanding of molecular and circuit-based mechanisms of sleep","authors":"Hiroyuki J Kanaya , Koji L Ode , Hiroki R Ueda","doi":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103427","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103427","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sleep, a universal biological phenomenon, is regulated by multiscale processes, from molecular mechanisms to cellular networks. While the underlying mechanisms, particularly those governing sleep homeostasis, were poorly understood, recent technological breakthroughs have facilitated the identification of molecular and circuit-based mechanisms. Advances in mouse genetics, including next-generation genetics that bypass the need for crossing and postnatal gene knockout methods, enable the comprehensive identification of molecular components for sleep regulation by combining them with noninvasive, large-scale sleep measurements. Elucidated mechanisms include Ca<sup>2+</sup>-related and protein kinase/phosphatase-mediated signaling, supporting the phosphorylation hypothesis of sleep. The molecular signaling forms ‘cellular sleepiness’ in sleep regulatory neurons to modulate neuronal activity. These integrated understandings of multiscale mechanisms will lead to a system-level understanding of sleep regulation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10833,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in biotechnology","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 103427"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145951626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-09DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103428
Julian Elijah Politsch , Alberto González-Delgado , Krzysztof Wabnik
Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing, imaging, and phenotyping have carried plant science into the era of ‘big data.’ Complex, multi-scale datasets provide new opportunities to uncover plant molecular mechanisms with a level of detail previously unachievable. Fully exploiting this complexity requires integrating advanced statistics, computational modeling, and artificial intelligence (AI). This minireview offers guidance on how the combination of AI and mechanistic models is transforming temporal, image-based, and spatial omics data into detailed predictions of robust plant traits. In addition, embedding physical principles into AI models can enhance interpretability and strengthen their biological grounding, leading to more realistic representations of plant inner workings. Together, these advances are reshaping plant science by turning ‘big data’ into deep insights, thus greatly enriching our understanding of plant growth, adaptation, and environmental responses.
{"title":"From big data to mechanistic insights: decoding plant complexity with models","authors":"Julian Elijah Politsch , Alberto González-Delgado , Krzysztof Wabnik","doi":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103428","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103428","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing, imaging, and phenotyping have carried plant science into the era of ‘big data.’ Complex, multi-scale datasets provide new opportunities to uncover plant molecular mechanisms with a level of detail previously unachievable. Fully exploiting this complexity requires integrating advanced statistics, computational modeling, and artificial intelligence (AI). This minireview offers guidance on how the combination of AI and mechanistic models is transforming temporal, image-based, and spatial omics data into detailed predictions of robust plant traits. In addition, embedding physical principles into AI models can enhance interpretability and strengthen their biological grounding, leading to more realistic representations of plant inner workings. Together, these advances are reshaping plant science by turning ‘big data’ into deep insights, thus greatly enriching our understanding of plant growth, adaptation, and environmental responses.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10833,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in biotechnology","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 103428"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145920971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Microbes play a pivotal role in the Earth’s carbon cycle, regulating greenhouse gas fluxes by emitting, fixing and transforming CO2. Among them, acetogens stand out for their ability to fix CO2 through the Wood–Ljungdahl pathway, an ancient, highly energy-efficient route to acetyl-CoA that operates at thermodynamic limits. By coupling hydrogen (H2) or carbon monoxide oxidation to CO2 fixation, acetogens conserve energy while generating biomass and valuable products such as ethanol and acetate. These features position them as promising microbial cell factories for sustainable bioproduction via gas fermentation. Recent advances in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology have expanded the production spectrum of acetogens, enabling production of platform chemicals at lab-to-commercial scale. Yet, CO2-only bioconversion remains energetically challenging compared to syngas-based applications, requiring innovative solutions in strain development, bioprocess optimisation and integration of renewable energy sources. This review highlights the central role of model acetogens in anaerobic CO2 conversion, covering their metabolic capabilities, strain development and emerging bioprocess strategies to unlock their potential for low-carbon biomanufacturing.
{"title":"Model acetogens as chassis for CO2-driven bioproduction","authors":"Karen Rodriguez , Jitendra Joshi , Chris Greening , Esteban Marcellin","doi":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103423","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103423","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Microbes play a pivotal role in the Earth’s carbon cycle, regulating greenhouse gas fluxes by emitting, fixing and transforming CO<sub>2</sub>. Among them, acetogens stand out for their ability to fix CO<sub>2</sub> through the Wood–Ljungdahl pathway, an ancient, highly energy-efficient route to acetyl-CoA that operates at thermodynamic limits. By coupling hydrogen (H<sub>2</sub>) or carbon monoxide oxidation to CO<sub>2</sub> fixation, acetogens conserve energy while generating biomass and valuable products such as ethanol and acetate. These features position them as promising microbial cell factories for sustainable bioproduction via gas fermentation. Recent advances in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology have expanded the production spectrum of acetogens, enabling production of platform chemicals at lab-to-commercial scale. Yet, CO<sub>2</sub>-only bioconversion remains energetically challenging compared to syngas-based applications, requiring innovative solutions in strain development, bioprocess optimisation and integration of renewable energy sources. This review highlights the central role of model acetogens in anaerobic CO<sub>2</sub> conversion, covering their metabolic capabilities, strain development and emerging bioprocess strategies to unlock their potential for low-carbon biomanufacturing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10833,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in biotechnology","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 103423"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145921035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-08DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103426
Seda Yaşar, Fabienne Gehrke, Niklas Capdeville, Holger Puchta
The adaptation of the CRISPR/Cas system as a biotechnological tool has enabled a wide spectrum of targeted genome modifications. Whereas earlier approaches focused on small sequence changes, recent years have seen a shift toward larger-scale alterations. Advances in homology-directed gene targeting now enable efficient, scar-free kilobase insertions, while combining nuclease-deficient Cas effectors with recombinases or transposases allows the integration of much larger sequences. Prime editing further expands this scope, enabling inversions, replacements, and deletions spanning hundreds of kilobases to several megabases. More recently, genome engineering has reached a new stage with chromosome fission and fusion, demonstrating the feasibility of controlled karyotype restructuring. Together, these advances open new opportunities for crop improvement, from establishing reproductive barriers and mimicking evolutionary processes to trait stacking on Plant Artificial Chromosomes.
{"title":"Recent progress in plant genome engineering: from large insertions to chromosome number changes","authors":"Seda Yaşar, Fabienne Gehrke, Niklas Capdeville, Holger Puchta","doi":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103426","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103426","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The adaptation of the CRISPR/Cas system as a biotechnological tool has enabled a wide spectrum of targeted genome modifications. Whereas earlier approaches focused on small sequence changes, recent years have seen a shift toward larger-scale alterations. Advances in homology-directed gene targeting now enable efficient, scar-free kilobase insertions, while combining nuclease-deficient Cas effectors with recombinases or transposases allows the integration of much larger sequences. Prime editing further expands this scope, enabling inversions, replacements, and deletions spanning hundreds of kilobases to several megabases. More recently, genome engineering has reached a new stage with chromosome fission and fusion, demonstrating the feasibility of controlled karyotype restructuring. Together, these advances open new opportunities for crop improvement, from establishing reproductive barriers and mimicking evolutionary processes to trait stacking on Plant Artificial Chromosomes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10833,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in biotechnology","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 103426"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145920970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-06DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103425
Shubin Mou, Yang Hai
Plant natural products (PNPs) offer exceptional chemical diversity and therapeutic potential, but their low natural abundance and complex biosynthetic origins often hinder scalable access. Microbial heterologous reconstruction has enabled the production of select PNPs, yet major challenges remain, including incomplete pathway elucidation, limited enzyme performance, and poor metabolic compatibility. Emerging advances in artificial biosynthesis provide a complementary strategy to transcend the constraints of native plant metabolism. By leveraging enzyme promiscuity, precursor prefunctionalization, modular pathway design, and recruitment of repurposed or engineered catalysts, artificial biosynthesis enables streamlined, controllable, and evolvable routes to structurally complex PNP scaffolds. These innovations define a rapidly advancing paradigm in which PNPs can be biosynthesized through predictive, design-driven, and non-natural pathways, offering new opportunities for discovery and sustainable biomanufacturing.
{"title":"Advances in artificial biosynthesis of bioactive plant natural products","authors":"Shubin Mou, Yang Hai","doi":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103425","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103425","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Plant natural products (PNPs) offer exceptional chemical diversity and therapeutic potential, but their low natural abundance and complex biosynthetic origins often hinder scalable access. Microbial heterologous reconstruction has enabled the production of select PNPs, yet major challenges remain, including incomplete pathway elucidation, limited enzyme performance, and poor metabolic compatibility. Emerging advances in artificial biosynthesis provide a complementary strategy to transcend the constraints of native plant metabolism. By leveraging enzyme promiscuity, precursor prefunctionalization, modular pathway design, and recruitment of repurposed or engineered catalysts, artificial biosynthesis enables streamlined, controllable, and evolvable routes to structurally complex PNP scaffolds. These innovations define a rapidly advancing paradigm in which PNPs can be biosynthesized through predictive, design-driven, and non-natural pathways, offering new opportunities for discovery and sustainable biomanufacturing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10833,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in biotechnology","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 103425"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145917309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-03DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103422
Tingyuan Xiao, Timothy P Durrett
Oilseeds provide a renewable platform to produce lipids and other valuable biomolecules. While conventional crops accumulate a limited set of fatty acids, advances in synthetic biology now enable exogenous pathways to expand oil diversity. The oilseeds camelina (Camelina sativa) and pennycress (Thlaspi arvense) have emerged as powerful platforms for this work due to their efficient transformation methods. Recent breakthroughs have come from genome-editing rewiring of endogenous lipid metabolism to remove competing pathways, which, when combined with bioprospecting to identify more efficient enzymes, delivers the greatest gains in product yield. Overcoming challenges such as achieving cell-type–specific expression and developing scalable strategies for pathway gene expression control will ensure these crops realize their potential as versatile platforms for next-generation bioproducts.
{"title":"Advances in tailoring camelina and pennycress oilseeds for specialty metabolites","authors":"Tingyuan Xiao, Timothy P Durrett","doi":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103422","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103422","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Oilseeds provide a renewable platform to produce lipids and other valuable biomolecules. While conventional crops accumulate a limited set of fatty acids, advances in synthetic biology now enable exogenous pathways to expand oil diversity. The oilseeds camelina (<em>Camelina sativa</em>) and pennycress (<em>Thlaspi arvense</em>) have emerged as powerful platforms for this work due to their efficient transformation methods. Recent breakthroughs have come from genome-editing rewiring of endogenous lipid metabolism to remove competing pathways, which, when combined with bioprospecting to identify more efficient enzymes, delivers the greatest gains in product yield. Overcoming challenges such as achieving cell-type–specific expression and developing scalable strategies for pathway gene expression control will ensure these crops realize their potential as versatile platforms for next-generation bioproducts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10833,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in biotechnology","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 103422"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145879990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-02DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103424
Claudia Beraldo, Alessandro Alboresi, Tomas Morosinotto
Photosynthesis is a fundamental biological process, and optimizing its efficiency is crucial for increasing crop yields without expanding cultivated land. Photosynthesis is finely regulated, and plants employ photoprotective mechanisms such as non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) and alternative electron pathways to dissipate excess energy and avoid potential damage.
In field conditions, light availability fluctuates rapidly due to environmental variability and canopy architecture, creating alternating periods of saturating illumination and shade, a context where photoprotection mechanisms are essential but also generate energy losses. Promising improvements in light-use efficiency have been obtained by optimizing NPQ response to field conditions, though impacts vary across species. These results highlight the need for strategies tailored to species and environment and for exploration of complementary approaches targeting other mechanisms.
{"title":"Photoprotective-based strategies to enhance crop yield under fluctuating light conditions","authors":"Claudia Beraldo, Alessandro Alboresi, Tomas Morosinotto","doi":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103424","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103424","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Photosynthesis is a fundamental biological process, and optimizing its efficiency is crucial for increasing crop yields without expanding cultivated land. Photosynthesis is finely regulated, and plants employ photoprotective mechanisms such as non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) and alternative electron pathways to dissipate excess energy and avoid potential damage.</div><div>In field conditions, light availability fluctuates rapidly due to environmental variability and canopy architecture, creating alternating periods of saturating illumination and shade, a context where photoprotection mechanisms are essential but also generate energy losses. Promising improvements in light-use efficiency have been obtained by optimizing NPQ response to field conditions, though impacts vary across species. These results highlight the need for strategies tailored to species and environment and for exploration of complementary approaches targeting other mechanisms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10833,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in biotechnology","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 103424"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145879991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-22DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103417
Zachary L Budimir , Elizabeth I Parkinson
Cyclic peptides are promising drug candidates, but their synthesis, especially the synthesis of small, strained rings, remains challenging. Penicillin-binding protein-type thioesterases (PBP-TEs) have emerged as versatile biocatalysts that catalyze head-to-tail macrocyclization of nonribosomal peptides. Unlike canonical thioesterase domains, which catalyze diverse offloading outcomes, PBP-TEs exclusively promote head-to-tail cyclization, offering predictable reactivity. Their ability to act on diverse substrates in vitro further underscores their potential as tools for peptide drug discovery. This review highlights PBP-TE discovery and substrate scope investigation, along with recent advances in structural characterization and engineering, establishing these enzymes as a promising platform for the biocatalytic synthesis of cyclic peptides.
{"title":"Discovery and development of penicillin-binding protein-type thioesterases as biocatalysts","authors":"Zachary L Budimir , Elizabeth I Parkinson","doi":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103417","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103417","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Cyclic peptides are promising drug candidates, but their synthesis, especially the synthesis of small, strained rings, remains challenging. Penicillin-binding protein-type thioesterases (PBP-TEs) have emerged as versatile biocatalysts that catalyze head-to-tail macrocyclization of nonribosomal peptides. Unlike canonical thioesterase domains, which catalyze diverse offloading outcomes, PBP-TEs exclusively promote head-to-tail cyclization, offering predictable reactivity. Their ability to act on diverse substrates <em>in vitro</em> further underscores their potential as tools for peptide drug discovery. This review highlights PBP-TE discovery and substrate scope investigation, along with recent advances in structural characterization and engineering, establishing these enzymes as a promising platform for the biocatalytic synthesis of cyclic peptides.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10833,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in biotechnology","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 103417"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145818333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-22DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103421
Jeffrey L Moseley , Sabeeha S Merchant
Homologous recombination (HR) is an essential tool for complex metabolic engineering in yeast, but transgene integration into plant and green algal nuclear genomes predominantly occurs by non-homologous end-joining. Species of the closely related, oleaginous trebouxiophytes Auxenochlorella and Prototheca, are unusual among the green algae in that HR is the favored mechanism for DNA integration into the nuclear genome. This property enables locus-specific targeting of gene cassettes encoding multiple enzymes for manipulating existing biochemical pathways or introducing new functions. Genetic malleability, and regulatory approval for human consumption, coupled with robust fermentation performance at industrial scale, establishes Auxenochlorella and Prototheca as prime candidates for algal production of biochemicals and biomaterials. The examples presented here highlight strain improvement and engineering for synthesis of hydroxylated fatty acids for biomaterials, structured triglycerides resembling human milk fat for infant nutrition, very-long-chain mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids with nutraceutical or therapeutic potential, and cannabinoids for pharmacological applications.
{"title":"Genetically pliable green algae for bioproduction of modified fatty acids, nutritional therapeutic oils, and biopharmaceuticals","authors":"Jeffrey L Moseley , Sabeeha S Merchant","doi":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103421","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.copbio.2025.103421","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Homologous recombination (HR) is an essential tool for complex metabolic engineering in yeast, but transgene integration into plant and green algal nuclear genomes predominantly occurs by non-homologous end-joining. Species of the closely related, oleaginous trebouxiophytes <em>Auxenochlorella</em> and <em>Prototheca</em>, are unusual among the green algae in that HR is the favored mechanism for DNA integration into the nuclear genome. This property enables locus-specific targeting of gene cassettes encoding multiple enzymes for manipulating existing biochemical pathways or introducing new functions. Genetic malleability, and regulatory approval for human consumption, coupled with robust fermentation performance at industrial scale, establishes <em>Auxenochlorella</em> and <em>Prototheca</em> as prime candidates for algal production of biochemicals and biomaterials. The examples presented here highlight strain improvement and engineering for synthesis of hydroxylated fatty acids for biomaterials, structured triglycerides resembling human milk fat for infant nutrition, very-long-chain mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids with nutraceutical or therapeutic potential, and cannabinoids for pharmacological applications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":10833,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in biotechnology","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 103421"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145818430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}