About this Research Topic
Recent work has gone into engineering microbial hosts to produce non-native microbial compounds such as plant metabolites and other chemicals usually made by chemical synthesis. Since these compounds are typically not made by microbes, identifying and optimizing metabolic pathways that produce them by microbial fermentation is imperative but challenging. Also, even though the compounds are generally toxic to microorganisms, very little is known about genes that can be targeted to improve tolerance of such compounds to the microbial cell factory. In this research topic, we are looking forward to highlighting what novel functional tools are being developed and what existing genomics tools are being applied to address the challenge of microbial productivity and tolerance.
In this Research Topic, we highlight the application of genomic tools such as genomic library screens, genome shuffling, adaptive laboratory evolution and whole genome sequence analysis in identifying and modifying genes that result in improved microbial performance. We therefore encourage contributors to submit their findings in the form of original article, review article, opinion or mini-review that apply any of these genomic strategies. Ultimately, these articles will inform readers on new developments and applications of these approaches as well as how genomic tools can be further improved for microbial strain development.
Keywords: yeast, stress response, omics, systems biology, adaptive laboratory evolution, metabolism, functional genomics, genome shuffling
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.