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Antibiotics
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Synthetic Biology Brings New Opportunity for Antibiotics Discovery, 2nd Edition
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Synthetic Biology Brings New Opportunity for Antibiotics Discovery, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Antibiotics (ISSN 2079-6382). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant-Derived Antibiotics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026 | Viewed by 1377

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Yaojie Gao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Interests: natural products biosynthesis; chemical biology; metabolic engineering; enzyme engineering; synthetic biology; X-ray crystallography; CRISPR-Cas gene editing
Dr. Yaojun Tong

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Interests: crispr; microbiology; natural products; synthetic biology; cell factory
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Zixin Deng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Interests: microbiology; molecular biology; biochemistry; structural biology; natural products; metabolic engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Lixin Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering and School of Biotechnology, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
Interests: microbiology; systems biology; synthetic biotechnology; intelligent biomanufacturing; sustainable microbial natural product bank
Prof. Dr. Shuangjun Lin

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Interests: biosynthesis of natural products; enzymatic mechanisms; enzyme engineering and applications; synthetic biology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Antimicrobial resistance has emerged as one of the most pressing challenges to global health. Decades of antibiotic overuse and limited innovation have steadily eroded our therapeutic arsenal, while multidrug-resistant pathogens continue to proliferate across ecosystems and borders. Yet this crisis is also catalyzing a new scientific awakening. The convergence of genomics, genome mining, synthetic biology, advanced gene editing, and artificial intelligence is redefining how we discover, optimize, and manufacture antibiotics. By rationally rewiring microbial systems, we are entering an era where next-generation therapeutics can be designed, produced, and evolved with unprecedented precision and sustainability.

This Special Issue builds upon the success of its first edition, uniting leading voices and pioneering research from across disciplines and continents. Together, these studies illuminate how technological integration and global collaboration are reshaping the future of anti-infective innovation. Through continued creativity and partnership, the scientific community can transform today’s antibiotic crisis into an opportunity for lasting resilience in human health.

Dr. Yaojie Gao
Dr. Yaojun Tong
Prof. Dr. Zixin Deng
Prof. Dr. Lixin Zhang
Prof. Dr. Shuangjun Lin
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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. Antibiotics 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 2900 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

  • bioactive natural products
  • biosynthesis
  • microbial cell factory
  • synthetic biology
  • metabolic engineering
  • advanced biotechnology
  • antibiotics

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 1424 KB  
Article
Engineering Industrial Strain of Acremonium chrysogenum for Deacetoxycephalosporin C Overproduction Using CRISPR/Cas9
by Zhiping Hou, Mengliu Peng, Xiaozhi Ju, Yaqi Sun, Liping Du, Ye Liang and Shu-Shan Gao
Antibiotics 2026, 15(2), 202; https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics15020202 - 12 Feb 2026
Viewed by 773
Abstract
Background: The fungus Acremonium chrysogenum is crucial for producing cephalosporin antibiotics. While CRISPR/Cas9 has been developed for this species, it has not been applied to first-line industrial strains, to the best of our knowledge. For example, engineering industrial A. chrysogenum for overproducing deacetoxycephalosporin [...] Read more.
Background: The fungus Acremonium chrysogenum is crucial for producing cephalosporin antibiotics. While CRISPR/Cas9 has been developed for this species, it has not been applied to first-line industrial strains, to the best of our knowledge. For example, engineering industrial A. chrysogenum for overproducing deacetoxycephalosporin C (DAOC, an important precursor for clinically used cephalosporin antibiotics) is currently often a multi-step and inefficient process. Methods: Here, we applied CRISPR/Cas9 to create a DAOC overproducer in a single step. Our method uses a donor template to simultaneously delete and overexpress genes, offering a simple, efficient, and time-saving solution. Results: Furthermore, through methodological optimization, the final homozygous multigene-edited strain achieved an industrial-scale DAOC titer of 12.4 ± 0.2 g/L, representing a significant improvement over the initial edited strain (7.2 ± 0.22 g/L). Conclusions: This demonstrates that CRISPR/Cas9 can effectively edit industrial A. chrysogenum, providing a strategy to enhance the production of other cephalosporin precursors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Synthetic Biology Brings New Opportunity for Antibiotics Discovery, 2nd Edition)
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