Abstract
The instability caused by fluctuations in oil prices and the undesirable damage that greenhouse gas emissions cause to the environment have encouraged the investigation of alternative platforms for the sustainable production of fuels from renewable sources. Recent advances in synthetic biology, metabolic engineering and plant and microbial genomics have accelerated the development of efficient systems for the production of fuels from biomass feedstocks. The continuous breakthroughs in systems biology tools and the integration of these tools into in silico metabolic models have complemented these advances and, subsequently, enabled the systematic analysis and design of biofuel-producing microorganisms with improved properties. This article reviews the most significant contributions of systems biology that have powered the development of novel and more efficient microbes for the production of biofuels.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Clementina Dellomonaco for critical reading of this manuscript.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This work was supported by grants from the US National Science Foundation (EEC-0813570 and CBET-0645188) and the National Research Initiative of the US Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (2005-35504-16698). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.