Frederic CADET
Peaccel, France
Title: Automatic Reconstruction and Modelling of Biocatalyst Systems for the Production of Specific Biochemical Compounds
Biography
Biography: Frederic CADET
Abstract
The knowledge of organisms and their metabolic pathways allowed to construct biological systems for the production of chemicals and pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics and biofuels. Synthetic biology expands the number of these biological systems by the assembly of artificial metabolic pathways, called synthetic pathways, not present in natural organisms. Synthetic pathways could be integrated in modified micro-organisms or in biocatalyst systems. A biocatalyst system is an in vitro assembly composed only of purified enzymes and metabolites that are useful for the production of a desired metabolic compound through a biochemical reaction network. This in vitro assembly, as compared to cellular system, has several advantages, such as the production of only desired metabolites and a great engineering flexibility. We explored an in silico approach to identify and analyse new biocatalyst systems for the production of target metabolic compounds. This approach proceeds in several steps. The first step is the enumeration of several biocatalyst systems that could synthesize a target product from a desired starting substrate. Next, a selection based on several criteria is applied to choose a biocatalyst system among the group of biocatalyst systems identified in the enumeration step. The last step is the modelling of the selected biocatalyst system to evaluate the production rate and the yield of the target product. This communication explains in more detail the modus operandi for the different steps of our in silico approach.