Restructuring cyanobacterial metabolism for high-value compound production

环境可持续性和经济增长必须协调一致，才能在气候变化时期实现稳定繁荣。操纵蓝藻(蓝藻)中的基因活动提供了直接从阳光、水和二氧化碳生产能量和材料的可能性，直接促进了更全面的食品生产模式、创新的生物产品和减少人类碳排放的可靠生物能源解决方案。螺旋藻作为营养资源和附加值产品的来源被广泛培养，包括维生素A-E、各种萜类、聚酯、伽马亚油酸、β-胡萝卜素和脂肪酸。然而，我们目前无法在螺旋藻中操纵遗传学，这是通过中央代谢途径优化代谢流量和为工业规模生产用户定义的产品编程这些途径的障碍。这项研究项目将开发工具和方法来克服这些瓶颈。作为实验过程的一部分，我们将应用尖端基因组编辑技术来对生物体中的每一个基因进行功能表征。由此产生的信息将被用来提高螺旋藻的光合作用速率，并合理地重新引导代谢流量，通过直接基因工程或鉴定自然发生的遗传变异，生产出最适合过度生产高价值产品的菌株。这将使构建能够生产复杂有机分子和平台化学品的工程菌株成为可能。整个工作将与一家为螺旋藻的大规模生长建造和运营工业生物反应器的公司密切合作，为研究成果提供一条进入市场的途径，同时直接为培训在新兴的加拿大生物经济中就业的高素质人员做出贡献。

Environmental sustainability and economic growth must be harmonized for stable prosperity in a time of climate change. The manipulation of gene activity in blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) offers the possibility of producing energy and materials directly from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide, contributing directly to more holistic modes of food production, innovative bioproducts and reliable bioenergy solutions that reduce human carbon emissions. Spirulina cyanobacteria are widely cultivated as a source of nutritional resources and value-added products including vitamins A-E, various terpenes, poly-esters, gamma-linoleic acid, beta-carotene and fatty-acids. However, our current inability to manipulate genetics in Spirulina is a barrier to both optimizing metabolic flux through central metabolic pathways and programming these pathways for the production of user defined products at industrial scales. This research project will develop tools and methods to overcome these bottlenecks. As part of the experimental process we will apply cutting-edge genome editing technology to functionally characterize every gene in the organism. The resulting information will be used to increase Spirulina's photosynthetic rate and rationally redirect metabolic flux to produce strains optimized for overproduction of high-value products, either through direct genetic engineering or the identification of naturally occurring genetic variants. This will allow the construction of engineered strains that can produce complex organic molecules and platform chemicals. The entire work effort will be conducted in close collaboration with a company that builds and operates industrial bioreactors for large-scale growth of Spirulina providing a path to market for research outcomes while contributing directly to training highly qualified personnel pursuing employment in the emerging Canadian bioeconomy.