Design, construction, and application of noncanonical redox cofactor infrastructures

Controlling the flow of carbon and reducing power in biological systems is a central theme in metabolic engineering. Often, trade-offs in pushing carbon flux through targeted pathways while operating in conditions agreeable to the host are required due to the central pools of the shared native redox cofactors NAD(P)/H. Noncanonical redox cofactors (NRCs) have emerged as promising tools to transform how engineers develop biotransformation systems. These new-to-Nature redox cofactors have been demonstrated to function orthogonally to the endogenous cofactors, support pathway thermodynamics optimization, and achieve product scopes previously difficult to reach due to endogenous pathway crosstalk. This review will discuss the development of NRC infrastructures, comprising NRC pools, cofactor reduction sources, and cofactor oxidation sinks, the (pool-source-sink) infrastructure.