Application of Systems Metabolic Engineering in the Microbial Directed Evolution

Rapid advancement of systems biology enable our understanding of cellular properties in physiology, biochemistry, metabolism and regulation. One of the main applications for systems metabolic engineering, based on systems biology, is to increase microbial cells tolerance to their environmental stress and to enhance production of desired products using directed evolution on microbes. The former goal is achieved using global transcriptional mechanism engineering and inverse metabolic engineering; the latter is implemented by the strategies such as designing and inserting optimal pathwyas, reconstructing metabolic networks, in silico knocking-out of genes and wet-lab validation, etc. This paper reviews some technological and applicational developments involve the use of systems mentabolic engineering to solve problems in cellular biological engineering.