Metabolic Engineering for Large‐Scale Environmental Bioremediation

Abstract

Designing biological agents for counteracting the noxious effects of chemical pollutants includes – but goes beyond – engineering biodegradative pathways in suitable microbial hosts. The soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida has emerged as a test bed for many of the issues that need to be tackled in the way of devising safe and efficacious bioremediation strategies. The performance of pollution-cleanup agents in large, open environments and under diverse conditions demands traits different of those which would suffice for the controlled circumstances of a bioreactor or a laboratory. Sophisticated molecular tools, specifically tailored to secure the delivery of the desired catalytic activities in situ, have been developed to further expand the catabolic repertoire of P. putida to this end. Importance. Due to the global environmental deterioration brought about by urban, agricultural, and industrial activities, deploying bioremediation interventions for curbing chemical pollution has expanded from well-located sites to large-scale, even planet-wide scenarios. The onset of systems and synthetic biology is empowering the field for addressing environmental pollution problems that were considered intractable before, including reversal of CO2 emission and elimination of plastics and micropollutants. The repertoire of biological agents that can be engineered for this purpose includes not only specialized bacterial strains but also communities and “super spreaders” of beneficial propertie…