Abstract

Many studies have demonstrated that the gut microbiota is associated with human health and disease. Manipulation of the gut microbiota, e.g. supplementation of probiotics, has been suggested to be feasible, but subject to limited therapeutic efficacy. To develop efficient microbiota-targeted diagnostic and therapeutic strategies, metabolic engineering has been applied to construct genetically modified probiotics and synthetic microbial consortia. This review mainly discusses commonly adopted strategies for metabolic engineering in the human gut microbiome, including the use of in silico, in vitro, or in vivo approaches for iterative design and construction of engineered probiotics or microbial consortia. Especially, we highlight how genome-scale metabolic models can be applied to advance our understanding of the gut microbiota. Also, we review the recent applications of metabolic engineering in gut microbiome studies as well as discuss important challenges and opportunities.

Keywords

Gut microbiome; Probiotics; Microbial consortia; Metabolic modeling; Engineered microbes

Published in

Metabolic Engineering
2023, Volume: 79, pages: 1-13
Publisher: ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE

SLU Authors

• Roos, Stefan

  • Department of Molecular Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Medical Biotechnology (with a focus on Cell Biology (including Stem Cell Biology), Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Biochemistry or Biopharmacy)


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymben.2023.06.006

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/124726