Control of metabolic flux in yeasts and fungi

Most biotechnology companies that exploit microbial fermentations are actively seeking methods of improving the productivity or quality of their fermentations. On the one hand, strain manipulation is becoming easier, as molecular tool boxes grow ever more refined and microbial genome sequence information expands exponentially. On the other hand, the molecular manipulation of metabolic pathways appears to be becoming more complex, as many attempts to increase the flux through specific pathways have met with hmited success. Although such problems were predicted many years ago by metabolic control analysis (MCA), many molecular biologists remain blissfully unaware of this area. Therefore, a recent European meeting*,
which brought together industrial and academic researchers with expertise ranging from metabolic modelling to molecular genetics, was particularly timely.