Technological watch

Synthetic biology is touted as the next industrial revolution as it promises access to greener biocatalytic syntheses to replace many industrial organic chemistries. Here, we look to what synthetic biology can offer in the form of multienzyme cascades for the synthesis of the most basic of new materials – chemicals, including especially designer chemical products and their analogs. Since achieving this is predicated on dramatically expanding the chemical space that enzymes access, such chemistry will probably be undertaken in cell?free or minimalist formats to overcome the inherent toxicity of non?natural substrates to living cells. We begin by laying out relevant aspects that need to be considered in the design of multi?enzymatic cascades for these purposes. We critically review representative multienzymatic cascades, which have been specifically developed for the synthesis of compounds that have either been made only by traditional organic synthesis along with those cascades utilized for novel compound syntheses. Lastly, we provide an overview of strategies that look towards exploiting bio/nanomaterials for accessing channeling and other nanoscale materials phenomena in vitro to direct novel enzymatic biosynthesis and improve catalytic efficiency. We end with a perspective on what is needed for this field to develop in the short and long term.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved