Microbial Cell Factories for the Production of Functional Compounds

Dear Colleagues,

There is a demand for an industry that is sustainable and places less of a burden on the Earth’s environment, and a paradigm shift is gradually taking place from the era of the mass consumption of fossil fuels to the era of biomass utilization in order to reduce CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere. In order to counter environmental and energy issues, the chemical industry, which relies on fossil fuels, is undergoing technological innovation to an industry that uses microorganisms themselves and their biocatalysts. In addition, as the utilization of functional compounds in functional foods, cosmetic materials, pharmaceutical materials, etc., expands, fermentation production and microbial conversion of functional compounds by microorganisms are becoming increasingly important. As mentioned above, functional compounds that are useful in industry are extremely diverse, ranging from inexpensive raw materials that are consumed in large quantities, such as diesel and gasoline, to commoditized chemical products and pharmaceuticals with complex chemical structures. It is an urgent task to break away from the traditional dependence on fossil fuels such as coal, crude oil and natural gas, and there is a strong need to develop production technologies that use biomass as a raw material and utilize the metabolism of microorganisms.

This Special Issue focuses on the current trend and welcomes research related to the culture and microbial conversion techniques used in microbial production of various functional compounds, such as biofuels, functional foods, cosmetic materials and pharmaceutical materials, as well as the metabolic/physiological characterization of microorganisms. In this case, both primary and secondary metabolisms are welcome, as long as the metabolites are functional.

Dr. Nobuhiro Aburai
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fermentation is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• lipid production
• peptide production
• carbohydrate production
• secondary metabolite
• bioactive compound
• biosynthesis
• photosynthesis
• respiration
• fermentation
• microbial conversion