© 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim www.biotechnology-journal.com Editorial How multiplexed tools and approaches speed up the progress of metabolic engineering Hal S. Alper and Christoph Wittmann http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201300167 Commentary Systems metabolic engineering for the production of bio-nylon precursor Hiroshi Shimizu http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201300097 Review Recombineering to homogeneity: Extension of multiplex recombineering to large-scale genome editing Nanette R. Boyle, T. Steele Reynolds, Ron Evans, Michael Lynch and Ryan T. Gill http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201200237 Review Protein design in systems metabolic engineering for industrial strain development Zhen Chen and An-Ping Zeng http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201200238 Review Toward systems metabolic engineering of Aspergillus and Pichia species for the production of chemicals and biofuels Luis Caspeta and Jens Nielsen http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201200345 Review Protein engineering for metabolic engineering: Current and next-generation tools Ryan J. Marcheschi, Luisa S. Gronenberg and James C. Liao http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201200371 Research Article Systems metabolic engineering of xylose-utilizing Coryne- bacterium glutamicum for production of 1,5-diaminopentane Nele Buschke, Judith Becker, Rudolf Schäfer, Patrick Kiefer, Rebekka Biedendieck and Christoph Wittmann http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201200367 Research Article Integrated transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis of the central metabolism of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 under different trophic conditions Katsunori Yoshikawa, Takashi Hirasawa, Kenichi Ogawa, Yuki Hidaka, Tsubasa Nakajima, Chikara Furusawa and Hiroshi Shimizu http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201200235 Research Article Deriving metabolic engineering strategies from genome-scale modeling with flux ratio constraints Jiun Y. Yen, Hadi Nazem-Bokaee, Benjamin G. Freedman, Ahmad I. M. Athamneh and Ryan S. Senger http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201200234 Research Article Constraint-based strain design using continuous modifications (CosMos) of flux bounds finds new strategies for metabolic engineering Cameron Cotten and Jennifer L. Reed http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201200316 Research Article SMET: Systematic multiple enzyme targeting – a method to rationally design optimal strains for target chemical overproduction David Flowers, R. Adam Thompson, Douglas Birdwell, Tsewei Wang and Cong T. Trinh http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201200233 Research Article Computational evaluation of Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 metabolism for chemical production Trang T. Vu, Eric A. Hill, Leo A. Kucek, Allan E. Konopka, Alexander S. Beliaev and Jennifer L. Reed http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biot.201200315 Biotechnology Journal – list of articles published in the May 2013 issue. Special Issue: Systems Metabolic Engineering. Metabolic engineering combines a mix of approaches, including in silico modeling, omics studies, synthetic biology and protein engineering to improve mi- croorganism strains for increased yields and reduced production costs of desirable chemicals. Such an achievement is exemplified on this Special Issue’s cover, which shows an electron microscopy image of Corynebacterium glutamicum that has been engineered to produce a sustainable bio-nylon monomer from hemicellulose sugar found in the cell walls of plants. Image provided by Buschke et al. Systems & Synthetic Biology · Nanobiotech · Medicine ISSN 1860-6768 · BJIOAM 8 (5) 505–632 (2013) · Vol. 8 · May 2013 5/2013 Genome-scale modeling Protein engineering Strain design www.biotechnology-journal.com Systems Metabolic Engineering