Available strategies for improving the biosynthesis of surfactin: a review

Abstract

Surfactin is an excellent biosurfactant with a wide range of application prospects in many industrial fields. However, its low productivity and high cost have largely limited its commercial applications. In this review, the pathways for surfactin synthesis in Bacillus strains are summarized and discussed. Further, the latest strategies for improving surfactin production, including: medium optimization, genome engineering methods (rational genetic engineering, genome reduction, and genome shuffling), heterologous synthesis, and the use of synthetic biology combined with metabolic engineering approaches to construct high-quality artificial cells for surfactin production using xylose, are described. Finally, the prospects for improving surfactin synthesis are discussed in detail.

Keywords:

• Surfactin
• different substrate utilization
• genetic engineering
• xylose
• artificial cells

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China [2018YFA0902200] and the Frontier Science Center of the Ministry of Education and Tianjin University.