Abstract
Synthetic biology is a rising discipline that combines biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, and physics. In the early twentieth century, French physical chemist Stephane Leduc [1] put forward the idea that life can be simplified into a chemical reaction in his book The Mechanism of Life; however, because people’s understanding has stayed at the early biological research stage, the level of understanding of molecular biology is insufficient, and synthetic biology has not been developed. Until 1962, Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod [2] proposed an operon model for E. coli gene expression, which was favoured by researchers for its precise regulation. With the rapid development of recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s and high-throughput sequencing in the 1980s, the construction of artificial biological systems has gradually changed from idea to reality, and people’s understanding of synthetic biology has gradually deepened. In 1980, German scientist Barbara H-bomb [3] defined synthetic biology as a gene for bacteria using recombinant DNA technology in his long-form paper “Gene Surgery: On the Threshold of Synthetic Biology”. In January 2000, Nature published two studies on the construction of the first artificial bistable gene regulatory network and synthetic gene oscillator in E. coli [4, 5]. So far, synthetic biology remains a new field. In the same year, Eric Kool and other spokespersons reintroduced the concept of synthetic biology at the American Chemical Society, defining synthetic biology as genetic engineering based on systems biology, from artificial base DNA molecules, gene fragments, gene regulatory networks with signal transduction pathways, to artificial design and synthesis in cells. There are many different opinions on the definition of synthetic biology; nowadays, scholars generally recognize that the use of engineering concepts rationally synthesizes complex, biologically meaningful systems of different levels, from individual biomolecules, to whole cells, tissues, and organs. Importantly, these biological systems can perform functions not found in nature.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Leduc S, Butcher WD. The mechanism of life. Br Med J. 1923;58:141.
Jacob F, Monod J. Genetic regulatory mechanisms in the synthesis of proteins. J Mol Biol. 1961;3:318–56.
Hobom B. Gene surgery: on the threshold of synthetic biology. Med Klin. 1980;75:834.
Gardner TS, Cantor CR, Collins JJ. Construction of a genetic toggle switch in Escherichia coli. Nature. 2000;403:339.
Elowitz MB, Leibler S. A synthetic oscillatory network of transcriptional regulators. Nature. 2000;403:335–8.
Ewen CD, Caleb JB, James JC. A brief history of synthetic biology. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2014;12:381–90.
Paddon CJ, Westfall PJ, Pitera DJ, Benjamin K, Fisher K, Mcphee D, Leavell MD, Tai A, Main A, Eng D. High-level semi-synthetic production of the potent antimalarial artemisinin. Nature. 2013;496:528.
Patel RN, Banerjee A, Howell JM, Mcnamee CG, Brozozowski D, Mirfakhrae D, Nanduri V, Thottathil JK, Szarka LJ. Microbial synthesis of (2R,3S)-(−)-N-benzoyl-3-phenyl isoserine ethyl ester-a taxol side-chain synthon. ChemInform. 2010;25. no–no
Ro DK, Paradise EM, Ouellet M, Fisher KJ, Newman KL, Ndungu JM, Ho KA, Eachus RA, Ham TS, Kirby J. Production of the antimalarial drug precursor artemisinic acid in engineered yeast. Nature. 2006;440:940–3.
Parayil Kumaran A, Wen-Hai X, Tyo KEJ, Yong W, Fritz S, Effendi L, Oliver M, Too Heng P, Blaine P, Gregory S. Isoprenoid pathway optimization for Taxol precursor overproduction in Escherichia coli. Science. 2010;330:70–4.
Zhou YJ, Wei G, Qixian R, Guojie J, Huiying C, Wujun L, Wei Y, Zhiwei Z, Guohui L, Guofeng Z. Modular pathway engineering of diterpenoid synthases and the mevalonic acid pathway for miltiradiene production. J Am Chem Soc. 2012;134:3234–41.
Vjj M, Pitera DJWithers ST, Newman JD, Keasling JD. Engineering a mevalonate pathway in Escherichia coli for production of terpenoids. Nat Biotechnol. 2003;21:796–802.
Tsuruta H, Paddon CJ, Eng D, Lenihan JR, Horning T, Anthony LC, Regentin R, Keasling JD, Renninger NS, Newman JD. High-level production of Amorpha-4,11-diene, a precursor of the antimalarial agent artemisinin, in Escherichia coli. PLoS One. 2009;4:e4489.
Westfall PJ, Pitera DJ, Lenihan JR, Eng D, Woolard FX, Regentin R, Horning T, Tsuruta H, Melis DJ, Owens A. Production of amorphadiene in yeast, and its conversion to dihydroartemisinic acid, precursor to the antimalarial agent artemisinin. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012;109:655–6.
Juan G, Zhou YJ, Hillwig ML, Ye S, Lei Y, Yajun W, Xianan Z, Wujun L, Peters RJ, Xiaoya C. CYP76AH1 catalyzes turnover of miltiradiene in tanshinones biosynthesis and enables heterologous production of ferruginol in yeasts. PNAS. 2013;110:12108–13.
Dai Z, Liu Y, Huang L, Zhang X. Production of miltiradiene by metabolically engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Biotechnol Bioeng. 2012;109:2845–53.
Guo J, Ma X, Cai Y, Ma Y, Zhan Z, Zhou YJ, Liu W, Guan M, Yang J, Cui G. Cytochrome P450 promiscuity leads to a bifurcating biosynthetic pathway for tanshinones. New Phytol. 2016;210:525–34.
Kim DH, Kim BG, Jung NR, Ahn JH. Production of genistein from naringenin using Escherichia coli containing isoflavone synthase-cytochrome P450 reductase fusion protein. J Microbiol Biotechnol. 2009;19:1612–6.
Trantas E, Panopoulos N, Ververidis F. Metabolic engineering of the complete pathway leading to heterologous biosynthesis of various flavonoids and stilbenoids in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Metab Eng. 2009;11:355–66.
Hawkins K, Smolke C. Production of benzylisoquinoline alkaloids in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Nat Chem Biol. 2008;4:564–73.
Fossati E, Ekins A, Narcross L, Zhu Y, Falgueyret JP, Beaudoin GAW, Facchini PJ, Martin VJJ. Reconstitution of a 10-gene pathway for synthesis of the plant alkaloid dihydrosanguinarine in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Nat Commun. 2014;5:3283.
Mercke P, Bengtsson M, Bouwmeester HJ, Posthumus MA, Brodelius PE. Molecular cloning, expression, and characterization of amorpha-4,11-diene synthase, a key enzyme of artemisinin biosynthesis in Artemisia annua L. Arch Biochem Biophys. 2000;381:173–80.
Stephen GA, Jodie Y, Andrew W, Yue W, Srinivas C, Rupeng Z, Patina MH, Yenphuong TT, Qinghai Z, Ina LU. Structure of P-glycoprotein reveals a molecular basis for poly-specific drug binding. Science. 2009;323:1718–22.
Bill RM, Henderson PJF, So I, Kunji ERS, Hartmut M, Richard N, Simon N, Bert P, Tate CG, Horst V. Overcoming barriers to membrane protein structure determination. Nat Biotechnol. 2011;29:335–40.
Chen S, Xu J, Liu C, Zhu Y, Nelson DR, Zhou S, Li C, Wang L, Guo X, Sun Y, Luo H, Li Y, Song J, Henrissat B, Levasseur A, Qian J, Li J, Luo X, Shi L, He L, Xiang L, Xu X, Niu Y, Li Q, Han MV, Yan H, Zhang J, Chen H, Lv A, Wang Z, Liu M, Schwartz DC, Sun C. Genome sequence of the model medicinal mushroom Ganoderma lucidum. Nat Commun. 2012;3:913.
Krivoruchko A, Nielsen J. Production of natural products through metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2015;35:7–15.
Heckman KL, Pease LR. Gene splicing and mutagenesis by PCR-driven overlap extension. Nat Protoc. 2007;2:924–32.
Røkke G, Korvald E, Pahr J, Øyås O, Lale R. BioBrick assembly standards and techniques and associated software tools. Methods Mol Biol. 2014;1116:1.
Walhout AJM, Temple GF, Brasch MA, Hartley JL, Lorson MA, Heuvel SVD, Vidal M. [34] GATEWAY recombinational cloning: application to the cloning of large numbers of open reading frames or ORFeomes. Methods Enzymol. 2000;328:575–92.
Effendi L, Kok-Hong L, Phan-Nee S, Koffas MAG. Engineering central metabolic pathways for high-level flavonoid production in Escherichia coli. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2007;73:3877–86.
Yechun W, Hankuil Y, Melissa W, Oliver Y, Jez JM. Structural and kinetic analysis of the unnatural fusion protein 4-coumaroyl-CoA ligase::stilbene synthase. J Am Chem Soc. 2011;133:20684–7.
Yang Y, Lin Y, Li L, Linhardt RJ, Yan Y. Regulating malonyl-CoA metabolism via synthetic antisense RNAs for enhanced biosynthesis of natural products. Metab Eng. 2015;29:217–26.
Baadhe RR, Mekala NK, Parcha SR, Prameela DY. Combination of ERG9 repression and enzyme fusion technology for improved production of amorphadiene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. J Anal Methods Chem. 2013;2013:140469.
Jing-Yuan XU, Zhu Y, Ze YI, Gang WU, Xie GY, Qin MJ. Molecular diversity analysis of Tetradium ruticarpum (WuZhuYu) in China based on inter-primer binding site (iPBS) markers and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. Chin J Nat Med. 2018;16:1–9.
Ajikumar PK, Xiao WH, Tyo KEJ, Wang Y, Simeon F, Leonard E, Mucha O, Phon TH, Pfeifer B, Stephanopoulos G. Isoprenoid pathway optimization for Taxol precursor overproduction in Escherichia coli. Science. 2010;330:70–4.
Ma XH, Ma Y, Tang JF, He YL, Liu YC, Ma XJ, Shen Y, Cui GH, Lin HX, Rong QX. The biosynthetic pathways of tanshinones and phenolic acids in Salvia miltiorrhiza. Molecules. 2015;20:16235.
Paddon CJ, Keasling JD. Semi-synthetic artemisinin: a model for the use of synthetic biology in pharmaceutical development. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2014;12:355.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.and Shanghai Scientific and Technical Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zhang, Y., Jia, M., Gao, W. (2019). Synthetic Biology of Active Compounds. In: Huang, Lq. (eds) Molecular Pharmacognosy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9034-1_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9034-1_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-32-9033-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-32-9034-1
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)