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Science 15 June 2001:
Vol. 292. no. 5524, pp. 2024 - 2025
DOI: 10.1126/science.1062556
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Perspectives

BIOCHEMISTRY:
How to Make a Superior Cell

Gregory Stephanopoulos and Joanne Kelleher

Engineering cells and microbes to make a commercially valuable product has been successfully accomplished by introducing foreign genes into target cells (Zaslavskaia et al.). According to the Perspective by Stephanopoulos and Kelleher, successful gene modification may require intervention at multiple steps in a metabolic pathway to optimize the desired cellular properties. As the authors explain, this necessitates successive rounds of genetic modification and physiological evaluation, a strategy that forms the basis of metabolic engineering.

The authors are in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. J. Kelleher is also in the Department of Physiology and Experimental Medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC 20037, USA. E-mail: gregstep{at}mit.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Mutagenesis of the Bacterial RNA Polymerase Alpha Subunit for Improvement of Complex Phenotypes.
D. Klein-Marcuschamer, C. N. S. Santos, H. Yu, and G. Stephanopoulos (2009)
Appl. Envir. Microbiol. 75, 2705-2711
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Analysis of optimality in natural and perturbed metabolic networks.
D. Segre, D. Vitkup, and G. M. Church (2002)
PNAS 99, 15112-15117
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Enhanced Exopolysaccharide Production by Metabolic Engineering of Streptococcus thermophilus.
F. Levander, M. Svensson, and P. Radstrom (2002)
Appl. Envir. Microbiol. 68, 784-790
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


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