About this Research Topic
Bioactive compounds such as polyphenols, flavonoids, terpenoids, alkaloids, carotenoids, stilbenes, and anthocyanins have a great effect on promoting better human welfare as chemical and food additives, agrochemical products, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and biofuels. Noticeably, these bioactive compounds contain glycosides, steroids, plant sterols, and peptides. The exploration, biosynthesis, and amplification of potential biological activities of natural and non-natural molecules have remained unchanged as one of the most exciting trends in biotechnological products.
Most bioactive compounds are usually isolated from plants, microorganisms, marine organisms, and fungi. However, the yield of natural products is usually low and requires time-consuming procedures for industrial production. Furthermore, chemical synthesis is a costly, harmful alternative that requires multi-step isolation and purification processes. Nevertheless, plant molecular engineering has significantly improved, using industrially preferred microorganisms, such as Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Corynebacterium, Bacillus, and Pseudomonas. These microorganisms are promising alternatives for the biosynthesis of industrial products. In recent years, a wide variety of novel technologies for engineering plants and microbes has been developed to produce natural and non-natural compounds from renewable biomasses. Along with evolutionary engineering, metabolic engineering, and systems biology, synthetic biology is expected to further improve the productivity of the synthesis compounds.
This Research Topic aims to collect Original Research articles, Mini-Reviews, Reviews, Method articles, Technology Reports, Perspective, and Opinion articles covering recent advances in plants and microorganisms for production natural and unnatural compounds via the application of synthetic biology tools. Potential topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Biosynthetic tool for discovering secondary metabolites biosynthetic pathways
- Engineering and reprogramming of key heterologous enzymes in synthetic pathways
- Dynamic balancing of metabolic flux within the target biosynthetic pathways
- Recent advanced in metabolic engineering assisted by synthetic biology
- The challenges and future research of synthetic biology towards the sustainable production of bioactive compounds
Most bioactive compounds are usually isolated from plants, microorganisms, marine organisms, and fungi. However, the yield of natural products is usually low and requires time-consuming procedures for industrial production. Furthermore, chemical synthesis is a costly, harmful alternative that requires multi-step isolation and purification processes. Nevertheless, plant molecular engineering has significantly improved, using industrially preferred microorganisms, such as Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Corynebacterium, Bacillus, and Pseudomonas. These microorganisms are promising alternatives for the biosynthesis of industrial products. In recent years, a wide variety of novel technologies for engineering plants and microbes has been developed to produce natural and non-natural compounds from renewable biomasses. Along with evolutionary engineering, metabolic engineering, and systems biology, synthetic biology is expected to further improve the productivity of the synthesis compounds.
This Research Topic aims to collect Original Research articles, Mini-Reviews, Reviews, Method articles, Technology Reports, Perspective, and Opinion articles covering recent advances in plants and microorganisms for production natural and unnatural compounds via the application of synthetic biology tools. Potential topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Biosynthetic tool for discovering secondary metabolites biosynthetic pathways
- Engineering and reprogramming of key heterologous enzymes in synthetic pathways
- Dynamic balancing of metabolic flux within the target biosynthetic pathways
- Recent advanced in metabolic engineering assisted by synthetic biology
- The challenges and future research of synthetic biology towards the sustainable production of bioactive compounds
Keywords: Synthetic Biology, bioactive compounds, Microbial engineering, biosynthetic pathways
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
