Synthetic Biology: A Novel Approach for the Construction of Industrial Microorganisms

¹Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology, University of Zagreb, Pierottijeva 6, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia
²Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo SP-CEP 05508-900, Brasil
³King’s College, University of London, Franklin-Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NH, UK
⁴Department of Genetics, University of Kaiserslautern, Postfach 3049, DE-67653 Kaiserslautern, Germany

Article history:
Received October 3, 2012
Accepted January 18, 2013

Key words:
molecular biotechnology, industrial microorganisms, DNA synthesis, homologous recombination, recombinant gene clusters

Summary:
The recent achievement of synthesising a functioning bacterial chromosome marks a coming of age for engineering living organisms. In the future this should allow the construction of novel organisms to help solve the problems facing the human race, including health care, food, energy and environmental protection. In this minireview, the current state of the field is described and the role of synthetic biology in biotechnology in the short and medium term is discussed. It is particularly aimed at the needs of food technologists, nutritionists and other biotechnologists, who might not be aware of the potential significance of synthetic biology to the research and development in their fields. The potential of synthetic biology to produce interesting new polyketide compounds is discussed in detail. 

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