Recent progress in development of synthetic biology platforms and metabolic engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum

• Hierarchy of synthetic biology was subjected to review the application of synthetic biology in Corynebacterium glutamicum.
• Recent metabolic engineering of C. glutamicum has been updated and discussed in the aspect of synthetic biology.
• A perspective for the application of synthetic biology to metabolic engineering of C. glutamicum was discussed.

The paradigm of synthetic biology has been evolving, along with relevant engineering, to achieve designed bio-systems. Synthetic biology has reached the point where it is possible to develop microbial strains to produce desired chemicals. Recent advances in this field have promoted metabolic engineering of Corynebacterium glutamicum as an amino-acid producer for use in intelligent microbial-cell factories. Here, we review recent advances that address C. glutamicum as a potential model organism for synthetic biology, and evaluate their industrial applications. Finally, we highlight the perspective of developing C. glutamicum as a step toward advanced microbial-cell factories that could produce valuable chemicals from renewable resources.