CAREER: Engineering crop plants to metabolize products of CO2 electrolysis to enable food production with artificial photosynthesis

职业：对农作物进行工程改造，以代谢二氧化碳电解产物，从而通过人工光合作用实现食品生产

• 批准号: 2239243
• 负责人: Robert Jinkerson
• 金额: $ 58.25万
• 依托单位: University of California-Riverside
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-07-01 至 2028-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2239243&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Engineering; crop; plants; metabolize

Plants capture sunlight and perform photosynthesis to drive plant growth. Biological photosynthesis is very energy inefficient. Therefore, large areas are required for food cultivation. Artificial photosynthesis is more energy efficient than natural photosynthesis but has never been used for food production. This project seeks to develop an interface between plants and artificial photosynthesis systems (APS). Once the interface has been developed, plants will be engineered to grow more efficiently utilizing APS augmentation. The research will be integrated with educational and outreach activities. These will include engaging undergraduates in labs focused on CO2 electrolysis and creating and running a ‘Startup Design Competition’ to encourage students to translate research results into entrepreneurial pursuits.Artificial photosynthesis has the potential to be much more energy efficient than biological photosynthesis but has not yet been applied to food production. A hybrid inorganic–biological artificial photosynthesis system for energy-efficient food production was recently developed. In a two-step process, CO2 electrolysis converts CO2 into acetate, which serves as a carbon and energy source for food producing organisms (algae, yeast, and mushrooms) grown in the dark. Coupling this system to commercial photovoltaics gives a solar energy-to-biomass energy conversion efficiency of ~4% for the growth of algae. Crop plants cannot currently be cultivated with CO2 electrolysis effluent as their sole carbon and energy source. Many knowledge gaps exist about plant metabolism of short chain carboxylic acids, alcohols, and aldehydes found in CO2 electrolysis effluent. The goals of this project are to discover how plants metabolize products of CO2 electrolysis and to engineer plant metabolism to better use these products as heterotrophic sources of carbon and energy. To achieve these goals the project has two main objectives: (1) engineer plants with improved acetate tolerance and utilization; and (2) discover how plants tolerate and metabolize other products of CO2 electrolysis.This project is being jointly supported by the Cellular and Biochemical Engineering (CBE) Program in ENG/CBET and by the Systems and Synthetic Biology (SSB) Program in BIO/MCB.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.

植物捕获阳光并进行光合作用以驱动植物的生长。生物光合作用非常无效。因此，食物种植需要大面积。人工光合作用比自然光合作用更节能，但从未用于食品生产。该项目旨在开发植物与人工光合系统（APS）之间的接口。一旦开发了界面，将使用APS增强植物进行设计以更有效地生长。该研究将与教育和外展活动融合。这些将包括在专注于二氧化碳电解的实验室中吸引本科生，并创建和运行“启动设计竞赛”，以鼓励学生将研究结果转化为企业家的追求。人工光合作用有可能比生物学光合作用更节能，但尚未应用于食品生产。最近开发了一种用于节能食品生产的杂交无机生物学人工光合作用系统。在两步的过程中，二氧化碳电解将二氧化碳转化为醋酸盐，它是在黑暗中生长的食品生产生物（藻类，酵母和肌肉房）的碳和能源。将该系统与商业光伏的耦合可为藻类生长的太阳能对生物量的能量转化效率约为4％。农作物目前不能以二氧化碳电解效率作为其唯一的碳和能源种植。关于二氧化碳电解效率中发现的短链羧酸，醇和醛的短链羧酸，醇和醛的植物代谢存在许多知识差距。该项目的目标是发现植物如何代谢二氧化碳的产物并设计植物代谢，以更好地将这些产品用作碳和能源的异营养来源。为了实现这些目标，该项目具有两个主要目标：（1）乙酸耐受性和利用率提高的工厂工厂； （2）发现植物如何耐受和代谢CO2电解的其他产品。该项目在ENG/CBET中的蜂窝和生化工程（CBE）计划共同支持，并由Bio/MCB中的系统与合成生物学（SSB）计划共同支持。该奖项通过NSF的稳定性和广泛的构建效果，均表现出了NSF的构建，该奖项是由NSF的构建范围进行了评估。 标准。