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Three different strategies are reviewed for evaluation of synthetic metabolic pathways.

A central challenge in the field of metabolic engineering is the efficient identification of a metabolic pathway genotype that maximizes specific productivity over a robust range of process conditions. A review from researchers at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI covers the challenges of optimizing specific productivity of metabolic pathways in cells and new advances in pathway creation and screening. Current methods for optimizing specific productivity of metabolic pathways in living cells are reviewed. New tools for library generation, computational analysis of pathway sequence-flux space, and high-throughput screening and selection techniques are discussed. Current work on population-based measurements is reviewed and the current outlook for the field is presented. The review appears in TECHNOLOGY online ready.

"One major limitation of high-throughput screening is the inability to map a DNA sequence to the output phenotype in a high-throughput manner, as typically only a few winners of the selection are sequenced. This limits transferability of the winning genotype to alternate hosts as the winning genotype is typically strongly dependent on the particular screening conditions. Secondly this is difficult to do with pathways of moderate-length with standard Sanger sequencing methods. Work performed by many groups including ours have used advances in deep sequencing technologies to track tens of thousands of pathway variants in high-through screens enabling us to see hundreds of potential winners," says Justin Klesmith, the lead author on this review.

The lead author of the TECHNOLOGY paper is Justin Klesmith at Michigan State University.

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation under award numbers CBET-1254238 and CBET-1236120.

Corresponding author for this study in TECHNOLOGY is Timothy Whitehead, Ph.D., taw@egr.msu.edu.

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About TECHNOLOGY

Fashioned as a high-impact, high-visibility, top-echelon publication, this new ground-breaking journal - TECHNOLOGY - will feature the development of cutting-edge new technologies in a broad array of emerging fields of science and engineering. The content will have an applied science and technological slant with a focus on both innovation and application to daily lives. It will cover diverse disciplines such as health and life science, energy and environment, advanced materials, technology-based manufacturing, information science and technology, and marine and transportations technologies.

About World Scientific Publishing Co.

World Scientific Publishing is a leading independent publisher of books and journals for the scholarly, research, professional and educational communities. The company publishes about 600 books annually and about 140 journals in various fields. World Scientific collaborates with prestigious organisations like the Nobel Foundation and US National Academies Press to bring high quality academic and professional content to researchers and academics worldwide. To find out more about World Scientific, please visit www.worldscientific.com.