Bacterial genome reduction for optimal chassis of synthetic biology: a review

Abstract

Bacteria with streamlined genomes, that harbor full functional genes for essential metabolic networks, are able to synthesize the desired products more effectively and thus have advantages as production platforms in industrial applications. To obtain streamlined chassis genomes, a large amount of effort has been made to reduce existing bacterial genomes. This work falls into two categories: rational and random reduction. The identification of essential gene sets and the emergence of various genome-deletion techniques have greatly promoted genome reduction in many bacteria over the past few decades. Some of the constructed genomes possessed desirable properties for industrial applications, such as: increased genome stability, transformation capacity, cell growth, and biomaterial productivity. The decreased growth and perturbations in physiological phenotype of some genome-reduced strains may limit their applications as optimized cell factories. This review presents an assessment of the advancements made to date in bacterial genome reduction to construct optimal chassis for synthetic biology, including: the identification of essential gene sets, the genome-deletion techniques, the properties and industrial applications of artificially streamlined genomes, the obstacles encountered in constructing reduced genomes, and the future perspectives.

Keywords:

• Genome reduction
• rational
• random
• chassis
• essential genes
• deletion
• industrial application
• bacteria

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [31730003] and National Key Research and Development Program of China [2021YFC2100500].