Innovations in Microbial Enzyme Production: From AI-Driven Design to Industrial Bioprocessing
A special issue of Fermentation (ISSN 2311-5637). This special issue belongs to the section "Industrial Fermentation".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 April 2026 | Viewed by 7
Special Issue Editors
Interests: protein engineering; directed evolution of enzymes; metabolic engineering; food microorganisms; fermentation process
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Enzymes serve as core biocatalysts enabling sustainable manufacturing across the pharmaceutical, food, and daily chemical industries. Engineering high-performance enzymes (e.g., glycosyltransferases, lipases, plastic-degrading enzymes, and diagnostic enzymes) in robust microbial cell factories promotes the technological upgrading of traditional industries while creating high-value products with significant economic potential. Microbial expression systems remain indispensable for producing value-added compounds—from antibiotics and vitamins to biofuels and food flavors—through genetically engineered pathways.
Recent advances in genome editing, multi-omics technologies, and machine learning now transcend traditional enzyme discovery paradigms. These innovations enable the targeted mining of enzyme genes, rational design of protein stability and activity, and optimization of enzyme expression in host systems. Integrated with structural biology breakthroughs and AI-driven protein engineering, these tools allow for the systematic design of novel biocatalysts and the reconstruction of synthetic pathways in microbial factories for efficient multi-enzyme cascades featuring optimized cofactor regeneration.
This Special Issue focuses on, but is not limited to the following:
(1) AI-guided enzyme mining and directed evolution;
(2) High-density fermentation and pilot-scale production;
(3) Host-optimized enzyme expression and metabolic engineering;
(4) Industrial applications in pharmaceuticals, green chemistry, and functional biomaterials.
We welcome original research and reviews advancing enzymatic platforms that surpass chemical processes in sustainability and specificity, spanning fundamental discovery to industrial-scale implementation.
Dr. Yang Sun
Prof. Dr. Ling Jiang
Guest Editors
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.
Keywords
- enzyme engineering
- microbial cell factories
- AI-guided enzyme mining
- directed evolution
- high-density fermentation
- metabolic optimization
- biocatalysts
- industrial biotechnology
- sustainable manufacturing
- multi-enzyme cascadestranscriptional regulation
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.
