Skip to main content
Log in

METABOLIC ENGINEERING

Giving E. coli a newfound appetite for formate

  • News & Views
  • Published:

From Nature Metabolism

View current issue Submit your manuscript

By introducing a rationally designed metabolic pathway into the genome of Escherichia coli, Kim et al. have re-engineered central carbon metabolism to utilize the one-carbon intermediates formate and methanol for the first time, thus generating a biological platform for sustainable fuel and chemical production.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1: Renewable bioproduction enabled by a synthetic C1-assimilation pathway.

References

  1. Bar-Even, A., Noor, E., Flamholz, A. & Milo, R. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1827, 1039–1047 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Kim, S. et al. Nat. Chem. Biol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-020-0473-5 (2020).

  3. Heux, S., Brautaset, T., Vorholt, J. A., Wendisch, V. F. & Portais, J. C. in Methane Biocatalysis: Paving the Way to Sustainability (eds Kalyuzhnaya, M. G. & Xing, X.-H.) 133–151 (Springer, 2018).

  4. Figueroa, I. A. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, E92–E101 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Yishai, O., Bouzon, M., Döring, V. & Bar-Even, A. ACS Synth. Biol. 7, 2023–2028 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Bang, J. & Lee, S. Y. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, E9271–E9279 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Gleizer, S. et al. Cell 179, 1255–1263.e12 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Schwander, T., Schada von Borzyskowski, L., Burgener, S., Cortina, N. S. & Erb, T. J. Science 354, 900–904 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Siegel, J. B. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 3704–3709 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Trudeau, D. L. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, E11455–E11464 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mary E. Lidstrom.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Lidstrom, M.E., Wang, J. Giving E. coli a newfound appetite for formate. Nat Metab 2, 219–220 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-020-0187-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-020-0187-8

  • Springer Nature Limited

This article is cited by

Navigation