Gene editing and genetic engineering approaches for advanced probiotics: A review

ABSTRACT

The applications of probiotics are significant and thus resulted in need of genome analysis of probiotic strains. Various omics methods and systems biology approaches enables us to understand and optimize the metabolic processes. These techniques have increased the researcher's attention towards gut microbiome and provided a new source for the revelation of uncharacterized biosynthetic pathways which enables novel metabolic engineering approaches. In recent years, the broad and quantitative analysis of modified strains relies on systems biology tools such as in silico design which are commonly used methods for improving strain performance. The genetic manipulation of probiotic microorganisms is crucial for defining their role in intestinal microbiota and exploring their beneficial properties. This review describes an overview of gene editing and systems biology approaches, highlighting the advent of omics methods which allows the study of new routes for studying probiotic bacteria. We have also summarized gene editing tools like TALEN, ZFNs and CRISPR-Cas that edits or cleave the specific target DNA. Furthermore, in this review an overview of proposed design of advanced customized probiotic is also hypothesized to improvise the probiotics.

KEYWORDS:

• Probiotics
• metabolic engineering
• gut microbiome
• CRISPR-Cas
• systems biology

Acknowledgments

RY and MB are grateful to M.D. University, Rohtak, India for University Research Scholarship (URS). VK is thankful to UGC New Delhi, India for awarding Junior Research Fellowship [F.17-63/2008 (SA-I)].