Special Issue "Metabolomics Meets Synthetic Biology"

A special issue of Metabolites (ISSN 2218-1989). This special issue belongs to the section "Metabolomic Profiling Technology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 April 2023) | Viewed by 1239

Special Issue Editor

Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR), Fischell Department of Bioengineering, University of Maryland, 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Room A231, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
Interests: biodesign and biological engineering; plant synthetic biology; protein design and engineering; gene-metabolite relationships in medicinal plants; protein expression and production
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Stunning advances in synthetic biology have enabled plants and microorganisms to be engineered for the increased production of a wide variety of useful and important metabolites.  These breakthroughs have benefited from computational, experimental and technical developments, especially in the areas of genomics and systems biology, and include transcriptomics and metabolomics, as well as modeling efforts to integrate global data on a cellular level.  Improved tools for biodesign are increasing our ability to rapidly identify, manipulate and regulate metabolic pathways.  Not only are metabolic engineering efforts enhancing our understanding of how interconnected cellular networks can contribute to and affect metabolism and cellular control, but they are finding broad application to pharmaceutical development, nutritional enhancement of plants to improve human health, biomanufacturing and biofuel production.  Accordingly, a special issue of Metabolites will focus on multidisciplinary aspects to the design and engineering of diverse biosystems for the production of endogenous or novel metabolites, and highlight computational, experimental or technical approaches for metabolic engineering.

Dr. Edward Eisenstein
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • metabolomics
  • metabolic engineering
  • systems biology
  • biodesign
  • secondary metabolites
  • natural products
  • biomanufacturing
  • nutrition
  • biofuel

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Project Report
Acclimation and Compensating Metabolite Responses to UV-B Radiation in Natural and Transgenic Populus spp. Defective in Lignin Biosynthesis
Metabolites 2022, 12(8), 767; https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo12080767 - 20 Aug 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 814
Abstract
Plants have evolved to protect leaf mesophyll tissue from damage caused by UV-B radiation by producing an array of UV-absorbing secondary metabolites. Flavonoids (phenolic glycosides) and sinapate esters (hydroxycinnamates) have been implicated as UV-B protective compounds because of the accumulation in the leaf [...] Read more.
Plants have evolved to protect leaf mesophyll tissue from damage caused by UV-B radiation by producing an array of UV-absorbing secondary metabolites. Flavonoids (phenolic glycosides) and sinapate esters (hydroxycinnamates) have been implicated as UV-B protective compounds because of the accumulation in the leaf epidermis and the strong absorption in the wavelengths corresponding to UV. Environmental adaptations by plants also generate a suite of responses for protection against damage caused by UV-B radiation, with plants from high elevations or low latitudes generally displaying greater adaptation or tolerance to UV-B radiation. In an effort to explore the relationships between plant lignin levels and composition, the origin of growth elevation, and the hierarchical synthesis of UV-screening compounds, a collection of natural variants as well as transgenic Populus spp. were examined for sensitivity or acclimation to UV-B radiation under greenhouse and laboratory conditions. Noninvasive, ecophysiological measurements using epidermal transmittance and chlorophyll fluorescence as well as metabolite measurements using UPLC-MS generally revealed that the synthesis of anthocyanins, flavonoids, and lignin precursors are increased in Populus upon moderate to high UV-B treatment. However, poplar plants with genetic modifications that affect lignin biosynthesis, or natural variants with altered lignin levels and compositions, displayed complex changes in phenylpropanoid metabolites. A balance between elevated metabolic precursors to protective phenylpropanoids and increased biosynthesis of these anthocyanins, flavonoids, and lignin is proposed to play a role in the acclimation of Populus to UV-B radiation and may provide a useful tool in engineering plants as improved bioenergy feedstocks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Metabolomics Meets Synthetic Biology)
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