Recent advances in molecular biology techniques, analytical methods and
mathematical tools have led to a growing interest in using metabolic
engineering to redirect metabolic fluxes for industrial and medical
purposes. Metabolic engineering is referred to as the directed
improvement of cellular properties through the modification of specific
biochemical reactions or the introduction of new ones, with the use of
recombinant DNA technology (Stephanopoulos, 1999). This
multidisciplinary field draws principles from chemical engineering,
biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, and computational sciences.
The aim of this article is to give an overview of the various
strategies and tools available for metabolic engineers and to review
some of the recent work that has been conducted in our laboratories in
the metabolic engineering area