Artificial biosynthetic pathways are typically assembled and optimized progressively, from earlier to later steps. This commentary highlights the potential of an alternate regressive method for biochemical pathway design and generation, inspired by the retro-evolution hypothesis and the concept of retrosynthesis. In addition to being a pathway design tool, 'bioretrosynthesis' has potential as a construction and optimization methodology.
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Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology and US National Institutes of Health RO1 GM077189.
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Bachmann, B. Biosynthesis: Is it time to go retro?. Nat Chem Biol 6, 390–393 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.377
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.377
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