Recent Advances in Systems Metabolic Engineering Strategies for the Production of Biopolymers

Biopolymers consisting of at least one monomer, which are produced from renewable carbon sources, are being highly sought out since ubiquitous plastics are mainly produced from petrochemical processes causing severe environmental pollution. Therefore, the development of microbial cell factories, which can efficiently synthesize diverse types of monomers and polymers, is also becoming increasingly important. The applicability of traditional metabolic engineering strategies has extended with the combination of systems biology, synthetic biology, and evolutionary engineering in a systemic and versatile manner, and are collectively termed as systems metabolic engineering. Accordingly, recent advances in biotechnology have paved the way for enabling the production of an increasing number of monomers and polymers by providing several tools and strategies associated with systems metabolic engineering. In this review, we have focused on the substantial efforts made on the development of different approaches of systems metabolic engineering, particularly based on synthetic biology and evolutionary engineering, for the efficient production of monomers and polymers.