The synthesis of natural products in yeast has gained remarkable achievements with intensive metabolic engineering efforts. In particular, transcription factor (TF)-based biosensors for dynamic control of gene circuits could facilitate strain evaluation, high-throughput screening (HTS), and adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) for natural product synthesis. In this review, we summarized recent developments of several TF-based biosensors for core intermediates in natural product synthesis through three important pathways, i.e., fatty acid synthesis pathway, shikimate pathway, and methylerythritol-4-phosphate (MEP)/mevalonate (MVA) pathway. Moreover, we have shown how these biosensors are implemented in synthetic circuits for dynamic control of natural product synthesis and also discussed the design/evaluation principles for improved biosensor performance.
Keywords: MEP/MVA pathway; biosensor; fatty acids; natural products; shikimate pathway; transcription factor; yeast.
Copyright © 2021 Zhang and Shi.