# Harnessing evolution: leveraging bacterial isoprenoid pathway diversity toward improved bioengineering strategies

## TL;DR

This paper explores how bacteria use different isoprenoid pathways, revealing diversity that could help engineer microbes for sustainable production of valuable compounds.

## Contribution

The study highlights rare bacteria with unique isoprenoid pathway configurations and their potential for bioengineering.

## Key findings

- Bacteria show significant diversity in isoprenoid pathway usage across and within genera.
- Some bacteria encode both or neither isoprenoid pathway, suggesting novel evolutionary adaptations.
- MEP intermediates may have roles beyond isoprenoid synthesis, influencing pathway evolution.

## Abstract

Isoprenoids play vital roles in all domains of life, from beta-carotene in bacteria to heme in humans. Two distinct metabolic pathways have evolved to synthesize the critical precursor of all mature isoprenoids: the mevalonate (MEV) and the methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathways. Here, we quantify the extensive inter- and intra-genus heterogeneity in the usage of these two pathways with particular emphasis on rare bacteria that encode both, or neither, pathways. Furthermore, MEP intermediates themselves have non-isoprenogenic roles that may underlie evolutionary pressures driving pathway diversification. Understanding isoprenoid biosynthesis in bacteria offers new avenues toward more sustainable engineering of economically relevant molecules in microbes.