Redox-balance-based growth coupling links oxidoreductase activity to cellular fitness and can enable high-throughput enzyme selection and strain evolution. However, because growth reflects the fitness of the whole cell, metabolic adaptation can circumvent the intended selective pressure. Here, we investigated the evolu...
Aidan E. Cowan, Mason Hillers, De-Tong Wu et al.· Metabolic Engineering· 0 citations
Engineering robust fermentation hosts remains a barrier to scalable biomanufacturing. In this work we replace canonical mixed-acid fermentation in
Escherichia coli
with a redox‑balanced reverse β‑oxidation (rBOX) pathway that produces medium‑chain fatty alcohols and is bioenergetically equivalent to ethanol ferme...
Bridgie Cawthon, Aidan E. Cowan, Zen Yoshikawa et al.· Nature Communications· 0 citations
Advances in metabolic engineering have enabled the integration of diverse non-native reactions into microbial hosts, providing sustainable alternatives to petrochemical manufacturing. We previously developed a modular polyketide synthase (PKS)-based platform in Streptomyces albus for producing 17 diols, amino alcohols,...
Q. Dan, Xi-Na Wang, Yan Chiu et al.· Metabolic Engineering· 0 citations
Coumarins and their derivatives possess diverse bioactivities and broad applications in pharmaceuticals, food additives, and materials science. For example, amino-functionalized coumarin derivatives hold significant promise for the development of novel functional materials and drug discovery. However, the microbial bio...
