Recent developments and future prospects of Vitreoscilla hemoglobin application in metabolic engineering

In hypoxic conditions, bacteria express a kind of hemoglobin, which is proposed to enhance respiration and energy metabolism by promoting oxygen delivery. Bacteria hemoglobin from Vitreoscilla stercoraria - Vitreoscilla hemoglobin (VHb), when expressed in various hosts in oxygen-limited conditions, has been shown to improve growth, protein secretion, metabolite productivity and stress resistance of hosts, thus rendering the protein promising in metabolic engineering, especially in plant metabolism optimization. In this review, many well-studies areas are presented to illustrate the potential of VHb application in biotechnology industry, to discuss the cellular mechanisms of VHb function and to show the wide variety of approaches taken within the field.