Synthetic biology approach to rewire carbon metabolism for efficient photoautotrophic chemical production

合成生物学方法重新连接碳代谢以实现高效的光自养化学生产

• 批准号: 1902014
• 负责人: Shota Atsumi
• 金额: $ 41.82万
• 依托单位: University of California-Davis
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-07-01 至 2024-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1902014&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Synthetic; biology; approach; rewire; carbon

Climate change has spurred efforts to reduce net carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. To address this issue, photosynthetic microorganisms will be engineered to recycle CO2 to produce biofuels or high-value chemicals. Undergraduate and graduate students will participate in this project. They will gain perspective on connections between biochemistry, microbiology, and bioengineering. The project results will be integrated with science and engineering education at the high school and college levels. Mentoring will be extended to high school students, including those from underrepresented groups. This will provide them with the opportunity to perform research in an academic setting. This project will evaluate a strategy to improve CO2 fixation that involves rewiring carbon metabolism in cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria can directly convert solar energy and CO2 to biofuels and bioproducts. Engineered cyanobacteria can produce a variety of compounds, but the productivities are too low to be commercially appealing. Also, current large-scale photosynthetic production schemes rely on natural sunlight for energy, thereby limiting production to daylight hours. The proposed production system is designed to overcome these limitations. It has been shown previously that improvement of RuBisCO, the CO2 fixation enzyme, is very challenging. Thus, this project will develop an alternative strategy to improve carbon fixation by increasing intracellular levels of the substrate for RuBisCO and directing carbon flux towards chemical production. The strategies developed will also serve as tools for probing and understanding phototrophic behavior and metabolism. This approach addresses many of the issues raised concerning the commercial feasibility of cyanobacterial chemical production. The proposed engineering cyanobacteria to build chemicals from CO2 has the potential to result in more efficient, economical, and controllable production systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

气候变化促使人们努力减少二氧化碳（CO2）净排放。为了解决这个问题，光合微生物将被改造成回收二氧化碳，以生产生物燃料或高价值化学品。本科生和研究生将参加这个项目。他们将获得生物化学，微生物学和生物工程之间的联系的观点。项目成果将与高中和大学的科学和工程教育相结合。指导将扩大到高中学生，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体。这将为他们提供在学术环境中进行研究的机会。该项目将评估一种策略，以提高二氧化碳固定，涉及重新布线蓝藻碳代谢。蓝藻可以直接将太阳能和二氧化碳转化为生物燃料和生物产品。工程蓝藻可以产生多种化合物，但生产率太低，没有商业吸引力。此外，目前的大规模光合生产计划依赖于自然阳光的能源，从而限制了生产到白天。拟议的生产系统旨在克服这些限制。先前已经表明，改进RuBisCO（CO2固定酶）是非常具有挑战性的。因此，该项目将开发一种替代策略，通过增加RuBisCO底物的细胞内水平并将碳通量导向化学生产来改善碳固定。开发的策略也将作为探测和理解光养行为和代谢的工具。这种方法解决了许多有关蓝藻化学生产的商业可行性提出的问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。