Engineering microbial platforms for diversified biosynthesis of antidepressant tryptophan-derived neuroactive compounds.

Microbial platforms have been engineered to produce tryptophan-derived neuroactive compounds, with recent advances enabling efficient biosynthesis of these therapeutics.

• Why it matters: Conventional methods for producing these compounds are limited by low sustainability, poor selectivity, and high costs, creating a need for more efficient and sustainable production strategies.
• What they did: The review discusses efforts to engineer microbial systems through tryptophan overproduction, hydroxylation biocatalysts, downstream pathways, and cofactor engineering, including bacterial heme-dependent tryptophan hydroxylases and AI-assisted enzyme design.
• The result: These developments expand the biosynthetic toolbox and highlight future opportunities for integrating strain design and bioprocess engineering to improve biomanufacturing of tryptophan-derived neuroactives.