Microbial Production of Flavonoids

Abstract

This book chapter addresses the recent advancements made in metabolic engineering for the heterologous production of flavonoids (both natural and non-natural) and also throws light on their biosynthesis and significance. Flavonoids represent the phenolic family of compounds. They are produced naturally as a product of plant secondary metabolism and have numerous health promoting benefits that make them valuable in food and pharmaceutical industries. But their limited production in plants cannot meet the globally increasing demand. The introduction of flavonoid biosynthesis pathways in microbial hosts by the application of metabolic engineering is a promising alternative for the large-scale production of flavonoids in an environmentally friendly manner. The modern innovations of synthetic/system biology in combination with metabolic engineering have been applied for the improvement of existing pathways as well as for the design, construction and optimization of the artificial pathways for the industrial scale production of flavonoids. Various rational and computational engineering strategies are available for optimizing the carbon flux towards the biosynthesis of flavonoids in a balanced manner without compromising the cell viability. Moreover, the emerging tools in metabolic engineering like computational and regulatory tools have increased the product titer by removing the bottlenecks from the pathway with minimum genetic perturbations. Also, the amalgamation of protein engineering and metabolic engineering have created novel enzymes as well as improved existing enzymes for the production of natural and non-natural flavonoids.