Engineering nanoreactors using bacterial microcompartment architectures

- BMCs are natural metabolic modules found in diverse bacterial phyla.
- BMCs are proteinaceous organelles that encapsulate enzymes for CO2 fixation or carbon catabolism.
- Bioengineering of BMCs enables the production of empty synthetic shells.
- Encapsulation of enzymes leads to BMC-based nanoreactors.
- BMC-based nanoreactors will be of significant value for synthetic biology.

Bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) are organelles that encapsulate enzymes involved in CO2 fixation or carbon catabolism in a selectively permeable protein shell. Here, we highlight recent advances in the bioengineering of these protein-based nanoreactors in heterologous systems, including transfer and expression of BMC gene clusters, the production of template empty shells, and the encapsulation of non-native enzymes.

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