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Engineering Pseudomonas for phenazine biosynthesis, regulation, and biotechnological applications: a review

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Abstract

Pseudomonas strains are increasingly attracting considerable attention as a valuable bacterial host both for basic and applied research. It has been considered as a promising candidate to produce a variety of bioactive secondary metabolites, particularly phenazines. Apart from the biotechnological perspective, these aromatic compounds have the notable potential to inhibit plant-pathogenic fungi and thus are useful in controlling plant diseases. Nevertheless, phenazines production is quite low by the wild-type strains that necessitated its yield improvement for large-scale agricultural applications. Metabolic engineering approaches with the advent of plentiful information provided by systems-level genomic and transcriptomic analyses enabled the development of new biological agents functioning as potential cell factories for producing the desired level of value-added bioproducts. This study presents an up-to-date overview of recombinant Pseudomonas strains as the preferred choice of host organisms for the biosynthesis of natural phenazines. The biosynthetic pathway and regulatory mechanism involved in the phenazine biosynthesis are comprehensively discussed. Finally, a summary of biological functionalities and biotechnological applications of the phenazines is also provided.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21377082).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Muhammad Bilal, Shuqi Guo, Hongbo Hu, Wei Wang & Xuehong Zhang

  2. Tecnologico de Monterrey, School of Engineering and Sciences, Campus Monterrey, Ave. Eugenio Garza Sada 2501, CP 64849, Monterrey, N.L., Mexico

    Hafiz M. N. Iqbal

  3. National Experimental Teaching Center for Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Hongbo Hu

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  1. Muhammad Bilal
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  2. Shuqi Guo
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  3. Hafiz M. N. Iqbal
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  4. Hongbo Hu
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  5. Wei Wang
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  6. Xuehong Zhang
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Correspondence to Hongbo Hu.

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Bilal, M., Guo, S., Iqbal, H.M.N. et al. Engineering Pseudomonas for phenazine biosynthesis, regulation, and biotechnological applications: a review. World J Microbiol Biotechnol 33, 191 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-017-2356-9

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