Directed modification of strains for surfactin production

Abstract:

Surfactin, a lipopeptide biosurfactant produced by Bacillus strains, is one of the most surface-active biosurfactant. It is assembled by nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) as secondary metabolites in microorganism. Due to its good stability, biodegradability and excellent surface activity in extreme environments, surfactin is gaining increasing attention as a valuable chemical with great potential in medicine, agriculture, food, cosmetics and microbial enhanced oil recovery. However, the low yields and high production costs of natural strain largely limit the large-scale industrial applications of surfactin. This article briefly summarizes the mechanism for surfactin biosynthesis, and reviews the main strategy for improving the yield and changing structure of surfactin including promoter engineering, enhancing efflux system, modifying NRPS domain and engineering fatty acid synthetases. At last, we discussed the prospect of the research on surfactin in the future.