Successful elucidation and optimization of the biosynthetic pathways for isoprenoids can lead to an array of natural products with a wide range of properties, including biofuels, pharmaceuticals, flavors, and fragrances. In order to maximize the potential of these pathways in high-performing microbial vehicles, considerations like cotton usage, promoter strength, pathway bottlenecks, combinatorial expression, and fermentation processes play important roles. The advent of synthetic biology has served to accelerate the construction and improvement of microbial "isoprenoid factories" by removing the barriers to strain construction including gene synthesis, combinatorial library generation, and rapid molecular cloning. Ample precedence exists for cases where these principles have been applied. This review will deconstruct the processes by which microbial production of certain isoprenoids was achieved. The molecules chosen in this review, artemisinin, farnesnene, farnesol, taxol, and isoprene, represent a wide range of functionalities and applications, and also allow us to highlight the different routes taken for their successful biosyntheses. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.