Protein engineering has been successfully used to develop a non-natural pathway for 1,3-propanediol (PDO) biosynthesis. A new computational approach has been proposed to improve the substrate binding specificity of the key enzyme. In addition, protein engineering has also been used to construct novel allosteric regulations with aspartokinase III (AK3) from E. coli as a model system, including enhancement of allosteric effects by its native effector and establishment of allosteric regulation by a new effector. These studies are expected to overcome the limitations of natural pathways and regulations and pave the way to the next stage of strain development.
Feng Geng
1,3-propanediol Protein engineering allosteric regulation