Fig. 1: Overview of the current research in the field of microbial C1 assimilation.

Systems and synthetic biology tools are usually developed in model polytrophic organisms, and are then applied to non-model organisms (1). Recently, some polytrophic organisms have been engineered to grow on C1 carbon sources (2). We argue that insight generated from such synthetic systems can help to improve natural C1-trophic organisms (3), which in turn should be studied to guide further engineering approaches (4). A next-generation of cell factories engineered to assimilate C1 feedstock could enable the switch from classical biomanufacturing to C1-based biomanufacturing (5). Created using BioRender.com.