MRE: a web tool to suggest foreign enzymes for the biosynthesis pathway design with competing endogenous reactions in mind

Hiroyuki Kuwahara, Meshari Alazmi, Xuefeng Cui, Xin Gao

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

46 Scopus citations

Abstract

To rationally design a productive heterologous biosynthesis system, it is essential to consider the suitability of foreign reactions for the specific endogenous metabolic infrastructure of a host. We developed a novel web server, called MRE, which, for a given pair of starting and desired compounds in a given chassis organism, ranks biosynthesis routes from the perspective of the integration of new reactions into the endogenous metabolic system. For each promising heterologous biosynthesis pathway, MRE suggests actual enzymes for foreign metabolic reactions and generates information on competing endogenous reactions for the consumption of metabolites. These unique, chassis-centered features distinguish MRE from existing pathway design tools and allow synthetic biologists to evaluate the design of their biosynthesis systems from a different angle. By using biosynthesis of a range of high-value natural products as a case study, we show that MRE is an effective tool to guide the design and optimization of heterologous biosynthesis pathways. The URL of MRE is http://www.cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/mre/.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)W217-W225
Number of pages1
JournalNucleic Acids Research
Volume44
Issue numberW1
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 29 2016

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'MRE: a web tool to suggest foreign enzymes for the biosynthesis pathway design with competing endogenous reactions in mind'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this