Metabolic engineering has been developed for nearly 30 years since the early 1990s, and it has given a great impetus to microbial strain breeding and improvement. Aromatic chemicals are a variety of important chemicals that can be produced by microbial fermentation and are widely used in the pharmaceutical, food, feed, and material industry. Microbial cells can be engineered to accumulate a variety of useful aromatic chemicals in a targeted manner through rational engineering of the biosynthetic pathways of shikimate and the derived aromatic amino acids. This review summarizes the metabolic engineering strategies and biosynthetic pathways for the production of aromatic chemicals developed in the past 30 years, with the aim to provide a valuable reference and promote the research in this field.
代谢工程从20世纪90年代初期发展至今已有近30年历史，对微生物菌种改良和选育工作起到了极大的推动作用。芳香族化合物是一类可以通过微生物发酵生产的化学品，广泛应用于医药、食品、饲料和材料等领域。利用代谢工程手段对莽草酸和芳香族氨基酸合成途径进行理性改造，微生物细胞可以定向地大量积累人们需要的各种芳香族化合物。笔者对近30年来国内外代谢工程改造微生物合成各种芳香族化合物的研究策略和生物合成途径进行了梳理和总结，以期为开展相关研究提供参考。.
Keywords: aromatic amino acid; aromatic chemicals; metabolic engineering; microbial fermentation; shikimate pathway.