Amino acid fermentation is one of the major pillars of industrial biotechnology. The multi-billion USD amino acid market is rising steadily and is diversifying. Metabolic engineering is no longer focused solely on strain development for the bulk amino acids L-glutamate and L-lysine that are produced at the million-ton scale, but targets specialty amino acids. These demands are met by the development and application of new metabolic engineering tools including CRISPR and biosensor technologies as well as production processes by enabling a flexible feedstock concept, co-production and co-cultivation schemes. Metabolic engineering advances are exemplified for specialty proteinogenic amino acids, cyclic amino acids, omega-amino acids, and amino acids functionalized by hydroxylation, halogenation and N-methylation.

氨基酸发酵是工业生物技术的主要支柱之一。数十亿美元的氨基酸市场正在稳步增长，并且正在多元化。代谢工程不再仅仅专注于以百万吨级规模生产的，但以特殊氨基酸为目标的氨基酸L-谷氨酸和L-赖氨酸的菌株开发。通过启用灵活的原料概念，联合生产和联合培养计划，开发和应用包括CRISPR和生物传感器技术在内的新的代谢工程工具以及生产过程，可以满足这些需求。代谢工程学的进展被举例说明了特殊蛋白原性氨基酸，环状氨基酸，ω-氨基酸以及通过羟基化，卤化和N-甲基化功能化的氨基酸。