发酵工业菌种的迭代创制

Upgrading microbial strains for fermentation industry

摘要:

生物发酵是以微生物菌种为生物催化剂，以淀粉糖、生物质等可再生资源为原料发酵生产各种食品、化学品、燃料、材料等物质的生产过程，具有绿色、低碳和可持续等特征。我国拥有全球规模最大的生物发酵产业，尤其氨基酸、维生素等传统发酵产品占全球市场份额的60%–80%。发展生物发酵产业对于我国实现“碳中和、碳达峰”的战略目标和生物经济发展具有重要的意义。微生物工业菌种是生物发酵产业的核心，直接影响原料路线、产品种类和生产成本。创新发酵工业菌种，提升其原料转化利用效率，提高产物生产水平，拓展产品种类，是生物发酵产业高质量发展的关键。近年来，合成生物学、系统生物学等学科的发展，进一步加深了研究者对微生物底盘细胞生理代谢机制的理解，加速了基因编辑等菌种设计创制使能技术的发展，为发酵工业菌种改造提升提供了新动能。本文选取了具有代表性的大宗氨基酸、B族维生素、柠檬酸、燃料乙醇等发酵产业，从其工业微生物底盘的基础研究和技术开发角度，综述发酵工业菌种改造提升的最新进展，并展望人工智能、自动化与生命科学交叉融合将对工业菌种迭代产生的重要影响。

Abstract:

Fermentation is a green, low-carbon and sustainable process for the production of food, chemicals, fuels, and materials by using microbial strains as biocatalysts and renewable resources such as starch and biomass as feedstocks. China has the world’s largest fermentation industry, the scale of amino acids, vitamins, and some other fermentation products accounted for 60%–80% of the global market share. The development of fermentation industry is of great significance for the strategic goal of “carbon neutralization and carbon peak” and the development of bioeconomy. Microbial strains are the core of fermentation industry, which directly decide what kind of chemical can be produced from what kind of feedstock at what cost. Innovating industrial strains to improve the conversion efficiency of raw materials, increase the production level, and expand product portfolio is the key to the high-quality development of fermentation industry. In recent years, the development of synthetic biology and systems biology has further deepened the understanding of the physiological and metabolic mechanisms of microbial chassis and accelerated the development of gene editing and other enabling technologies for strain design and engineering. All these advances have provided new driving force for the upgrading of industrial strains. This review focused on the representative fermentation products including amino acids, B vitamins, citric acid, and bio-ethanol. The latest progress of strain development for fermentation industry was reviewed from the perspective of basic research and technology innovation for industrial microbial chassis. How the integration of artificial intelligence and automation with life science will reshape the upgrading of industrial strains was also discussed.