Bioconversion—from Whole Cell Biocatalysis to Metabolic Engineering

Biocatalysis was employed to do chemical transformations on non-natural man-made organic compounds.Biological methods offer a true practical advantage over chemical synthesis.With the development of microbial strain involved in bioconversion,enzymes and proteins are increasingly being used as biocatalysts in the generation of products that have until now been derived using traditional chemical processes.Such products range from pharmaceutical and agrochemical building blocks to fine and bulk chemicals and,more recently,components of biofuels.Recombinant microbial whole-cell biocatalysis is a valuable optimization and modification approach for producing enantiomerically pure interemediates.Metabolic engineering based on the systems-level analysis of cells and organisms is now offering a new powerful way of designing and developing strains to improve the performance in biocatalysis.Recent advances and development strategies of bioconversion were highlighted here.