AUTHOR=Usai Giulia , Cordara Alessandro , Re Angela , Polli Maria Francesca , Mannino Giuseppe , Bertea Cinzia Margherita , Fino Debora , Pirri Candido Fabrizio , Menin Barbara TITLE=Combining metabolite doping and metabolic engineering to improve 2-phenylethanol production by engineered cyanobacteria JOURNAL=Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology VOLUME=10 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/bioengineering-and-biotechnology/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2022.1005960 DOI=10.3389/fbioe.2022.1005960 ISSN=2296-4185 ABSTRACT=
2-Phenylethanol (2-PE) is a rose-scented aromatic compound, with broad application in cosmetic, pharmaceutical, food and beverage industries. Many plants naturally synthesize 2-PE via Shikimate Pathway, but its extraction is expensive and low-yielding. Consequently, most 2-PE derives from chemical synthesis, which employs petroleum as feedstock and generates unwanted by products and health issues. The need for “green” processes and the increasing public demand for natural products are pushing biotechnological production systems as promising alternatives. So far, several microorganisms have been investigated and engineered for 2-PE biosynthesis, but a few studies have focused on autotrophic microorganisms. Among them, the prokaryotic cyanobacteria can represent ideal microbial factories thanks to their ability to photosynthetically convert CO2 into valuable compounds, their minimal nutritional requirements, high photosynthetic rate and the availability of genetic and bioinformatics tools. An engineered strain of