Synthetic biology to access and expand nature's chemical diversity

Advances in synthetic biology have simplified the characterization and production of biologically active molecules from various organisms. In this Review, Voigt and colleagues outline the design and construction of pathways used for the synthesis of such natural products in host microorganisms. Bacterial genomes encode the biosynthetic potential to produce hundreds of thousands of complex molecules with diverse applications, from medicine to agriculture and materials. Accessing these natural products promises to reinvigorate drug discovery pipelines and provide novel routes to synthesize complex chemicals. The pathways leading to the production of these molecules often comprise dozens of genes spanning large areas of the genome and are controlled by complex regulatory networks with some of the most interesting molecules being produced by non-model organisms. In this Review, we discuss how advances in synthetic biology — including novel DNA construction technologies, the use of genetic parts for the precise control of expression and for synthetic regulatory circuits — and multiplexed genome engineering can be used to optimize the design and synthesis of pathways that produce natural products.