About this Research Topic
Electro-biotechnology plays an essential role in the blooming bioeconomy to sustain our future society. It provides a unique approach to overcome one major inherited limitation for the majority of classic biosynthetic processes, which is due to the redox imbalance caused by the degree of reduction of substrate(s) and products. This interdisciplinary technique balances the microbial energy and redox metabolism using an external electrode, and can (at least partially) uncouple the redox metabolism from the carbon core metabolism and consequently elevate the product yield (which can even go beyond the stoichiometric upper limit).
Despite this promising feature, the efficiency of electro-biotechnology still needs significant improvement to reach industrial interest. Such demand has been gradually emerging as exemplified by the growing number of publications applying systems and synthetic biology approaches to designing the electro-biosynthesis process and/or improve its efficiency. Many non-electrogenic industrial microorganisms were successfully engineered to harbor extracellular electron transfer pathways or found to become “electro-active” via artificial mediator to perform electro-fermentation and also, the electrode-steered metabolic phenotype could be rationally tuned to favor targeted products. To be successful, a quantitative understanding and subsequent rational design of the electro-biosynthesis process will be the key.
Within this Research Topic, novel and creative research trends are highlighted that define, design and develop efficient electrode-driven biosynthetic processes of industrial relevance. The Topic will include (but is not limited to) the following areas, including both fundamental research to practical applications:
· Natural or engineered electro-active microorganisms and fundamentals of extracellular electron transfer for biochemical synthesis
· Electrode-steered microbial phenotype and electrode-driven cellular metabolism towards bio-production
· New methods and tools for quantitative analysis and mathematical modelling of the metabolic pathways for electrode-driven biosynthesis
· Systems and synthetic biology of electro-active microorganisms
· Electrode and system engineering for improving the biosynthetic process
· Novel process concepts (e.g. defined microbial consortia, electro-microbial cascade) for electro-fermentation of target chemicals
Despite this promising feature, the efficiency of electro-biotechnology still needs significant improvement to reach industrial interest. Such demand has been gradually emerging as exemplified by the growing number of publications applying systems and synthetic biology approaches to designing the electro-biosynthesis process and/or improve its efficiency. Many non-electrogenic industrial microorganisms were successfully engineered to harbor extracellular electron transfer pathways or found to become “electro-active” via artificial mediator to perform electro-fermentation and also, the electrode-steered metabolic phenotype could be rationally tuned to favor targeted products. To be successful, a quantitative understanding and subsequent rational design of the electro-biosynthesis process will be the key.
Within this Research Topic, novel and creative research trends are highlighted that define, design and develop efficient electrode-driven biosynthetic processes of industrial relevance. The Topic will include (but is not limited to) the following areas, including both fundamental research to practical applications:
· Natural or engineered electro-active microorganisms and fundamentals of extracellular electron transfer for biochemical synthesis
· Electrode-steered microbial phenotype and electrode-driven cellular metabolism towards bio-production
· New methods and tools for quantitative analysis and mathematical modelling of the metabolic pathways for electrode-driven biosynthesis
· Systems and synthetic biology of electro-active microorganisms
· Electrode and system engineering for improving the biosynthetic process
· Novel process concepts (e.g. defined microbial consortia, electro-microbial cascade) for electro-fermentation of target chemicals
Keywords: Electro-fermentation, Electro-microbiology, Electro-biosynthesis, Microbial electrochemical technology, Electroactive microorganism, Extracellular electron transfer
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.
