Physiological and energetic aspects of bacterial metabolite overproduction

This review attempts to provide a rational explanation for microbial metabolite over-production, a phenomenon manifest with many wild-type and mutant organisms. After analysing the relationships between catabolic and anabolic processes within the growing cell (which point to the presence of sufficient kinetic control elements to ensure a stringent coupling between the two), consideration is given to mechanisms that might allow the rate of catabolism to be varied independently of the rate of anabolism. It is in this latter context that an excretion of specific metabolites appears to play a key role.