Researchers are developing new ways to…

Researchers are developing new ways to reprogram the cellular machinery of microbes such as yeast and bacteria so they can manufacture useful products for medicine and industry. A team at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology has now shown that they can extend the biosynthetic capabilities of microbes by harnessing light to drive new types of chemical reactions inside cells.
In work published in Nature Catalysis, the researchers demonstrate that the bacterium Escherichia coli can be engineered to produce new-to-nature molecules in vivo using light-driven enzymatic reactions. The study establishes a framework for future advances in the emerging field of photobiocatalysis, which combines light activation with enzyme catalysis to access transformations that are challenging or inaccessible with traditional chemistry or natural enzymes alone.