Systems and synthetic metabolism for exploring nature products

Metabolism, as the major field of research in molecular physiology, is the foundation for understanding the dynamic activities of living organisms and their interactions with various kinds of environmental conditions. Our laboratory has been focused on exploring the useful nature products, mainly the primary and secondary metabolites from microorganisms in the last half century. Regulation of metabolism, particularly, the coordination of primary and secondary metabolisms was studied relying on quantitative bacterial physiology analysis along with forward genetics and biochemical characterization of metabolic enzymes in the 80’s of the last century aiming at improving the productivity. Since the 90’s of the last century, based on the development of "omics", the newly evolving disciplines of systems biology and synthetic biology have been providing new strategies for in-depth understanding of the molecular mechanisms for metabolic regulation as well as identifying various kinds of metabolic pathways, particularly for nature products biosynthesis from bacteria, fungi and plants. We paid special attention to technological innovation and engineering platform development, so that both a series of genetic manipulation tool-kits for DNA assembly and microbial genome editing and an efficient platform for quantitative metabolic flux assay and metabolomic analysis have been developed. In combination with the comprehensive information of genomics and functional genomics, we have developed chassis cells of Escherichia coli, Streptomyces coelicolor and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, facilitating both the systems cell biology research and the efficient design and reconstruction of cell factories for natural products production.