Yeast Feast on Xylose and Grow Quickly If Regulon Is Table d’Hôte

When yeast or bacteria are genetically engineered to consume a novel feedstock, they may develop a case of metabolic indigestion. That is, these engineered organisms may end up with nutrient metabolic pathways that are poorly integrated with downstream pathways for nutrient assimilation and cell growth.Unlike natural organisms, which incorporate catabolic genes into a group of genes called a regulon, engineered organisms may admit catabolic genes outside such regulons, in which case the genes ma