**KAIST Selects Optimal Strains Through Simulation**
**Microbial Cell Factories to Enhance Eco-friendly Chemical Production**
KAIST has developed a strategy using five types of microorganisms to produce 235 types of chemicals, which are used as raw materials for biofuels and plastics, in an environmentally friendly manner.
KAIST announced on the 7th that a research team led by Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has used computer simulations to select five industrial microorganisms, including E. coli, to propose a strategy for producing the 235 most commonly used microbial strains in the industry.
There has been growing interest in producing eco-friendly chemicals using microbial cell factories due to rapid advancements in systems metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. By modifying microorganisms and controlling their genes, microbial cell factories can enhance the production efficiency of valuable compounds.
However, selecting strains for use in microbial cell factories is challenging, and optimizing complex metabolic pathways is not easy. The research team utilized genome-scale metabolic models through computer simulations to select five representative industrial microorganisms (E. coli, yeast, Bacillus subtilis, Corynebacterium glutamicum, and Pseudomonas putida) as the most suitable strains for chemical production, establishing criteria for their selection.
Additionally, by introducing enzyme reactions derived from other organisms into microorganisms and exchanging microbial cofactors, the team successfully increased the production yields of various chemicals.
Kibae Kim, the first author and a Ph.D. holder from KAIST, stated, “By utilizing the introduction of metabolic pathways derived from other organisms and the strategy of exchanging cofactors, we can design new microbial cell factories that transcend existing limits,” and evaluated that “it will play a crucial role in developing microbial-based production processes more economically and efficiently.”
Sang Yup Lee, a Distinguished Professor at KAIST, expressed optimism, saying, “It is expected to greatly contribute to the development of technologies for producing various eco-friendly chemicals such as biofuels, bioplastics, and functional food materials in the future.”
The research results were published in the international journal ‘Nature Communications’ on the 24th of last month.