关键词: 进化工程, 超突变细胞, 菌种改造, 定向进化

Abstract: Engineering microbial cellular phenotypes with evolutionary engineering approaches is a hot topic for biotechnology and biorefinery, however current evolutionary engineering approaches were restricted by low efficiency and discontinuity. Application of hypermutable cells in evolutionary engineering, with autonomous and continuous in vivo mutagenesis mechanisms, will enable continuous and effective strain improvements. In this paper, we introduced the genetic mechanisms for natural generation of hypermutable cells, the respective construction strategies of artificial hypermutable cells, and applications of such systems for improvements of microbial cellular phenotypes and construction of protein mutant libraries. With development of relative knowledge and technologies in this area, hypermutable microbial cells with improved capacity of controllable and targeting in vivo mutagenesis will be constructed in future, and provide more desirable evolutionary force for strain improvement and protein engineering.

Key words: evolutionary engineering, hypermutable cells, strain improvement, directed evolution