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Production of alkanes from CO(2) by engineered bacteria

BACKGROUND: Microbial biosynthesis of alkanes is considered a promising method for the sustainable production of drop-in fuels and chemicals. Carbon dioxide would be an ideal carbon source for these production systems, but efficient production of long carbon chains from CO(2) is difficult to achieve...

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Autores principales: Lehtinen, Tapio, Virtanen, Henri, Santala, Suvi, Santala, Ville
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6102805/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30151056
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-018-1229-2
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author Lehtinen, Tapio
Virtanen, Henri
Santala, Suvi
Santala, Ville
author_facet Lehtinen, Tapio
Virtanen, Henri
Santala, Suvi
Santala, Ville
author_sort Lehtinen, Tapio
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Microbial biosynthesis of alkanes is considered a promising method for the sustainable production of drop-in fuels and chemicals. Carbon dioxide would be an ideal carbon source for these production systems, but efficient production of long carbon chains from CO(2) is difficult to achieve in a single organism. A potential solution is to employ acetogenic bacteria for the reduction of CO(2) to acetate, and engineer a second organism to convert the acetate into long-chain hydrocarbons. RESULTS: In this study, we demonstrate alkane production from CO(2) by a system combining the acetogen Acetobacterium woodii and a non-native alkane producer Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1 engineered for alkane production. Nine synthetic two-step alkane biosynthesis pathways consisting of different aldehyde- and alkane-producing enzymes were combinatorically constructed and expressed in A. baylyi. The aldehyde-producing enzymes studied were AAR from Synechococcus elongatus, Acr1 from A. baylyi, and a putative dehydrogenase from Nevskia ramosa. The alkane-producing enzymes were ADOs from S. elongatus and Nostoc punctiforme, and CER1 from Arabidopsis thaliana. The performance of the pathways was evaluated with a twin-layer biosensor, which allowed the monitoring of both the intermediate (fatty aldehyde), and end product (alkane) formation. The highest alkane production, as indicated by the biosensor, was achieved with a pathway consisting of AAR and ADO from S. elongatus. The performance of this pathway was further improved by balancing the relative expression levels of the enzymes to limit the accumulation of the intermediate fatty aldehyde. Finally, the acetogen A. woodii was used to produce acetate from CO(2) and H(2), and the acetate was used for alkane production by the engineered A. baylyi, thereby leading to the net production of long-chain alkanes from CO(2). CONCLUSIONS: A modular system for the production of drop-in liquid fuels from CO(2) was demonstrated. Among the studied synthetic pathways, the combination of ADO and AAR from S. elongatus was found to be the most efficient in heterologous alkane production in A. baylyi. Furthermore, limiting the accumulation of the fatty aldehyde intermediate was found to be beneficial for the alkane production. Nevertheless, the alkane productivity of the system remained low, representing a major challenge for future research. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13068-018-1229-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-61028052018-08-27 Production of alkanes from CO(2) by engineered bacteria Lehtinen, Tapio Virtanen, Henri Santala, Suvi Santala, Ville Biotechnol Biofuels Research BACKGROUND: Microbial biosynthesis of alkanes is considered a promising method for the sustainable production of drop-in fuels and chemicals. Carbon dioxide would be an ideal carbon source for these production systems, but efficient production of long carbon chains from CO(2) is difficult to achieve in a single organism. A potential solution is to employ acetogenic bacteria for the reduction of CO(2) to acetate, and engineer a second organism to convert the acetate into long-chain hydrocarbons. RESULTS: In this study, we demonstrate alkane production from CO(2) by a system combining the acetogen Acetobacterium woodii and a non-native alkane producer Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1 engineered for alkane production. Nine synthetic two-step alkane biosynthesis pathways consisting of different aldehyde- and alkane-producing enzymes were combinatorically constructed and expressed in A. baylyi. The aldehyde-producing enzymes studied were AAR from Synechococcus elongatus, Acr1 from A. baylyi, and a putative dehydrogenase from Nevskia ramosa. The alkane-producing enzymes were ADOs from S. elongatus and Nostoc punctiforme, and CER1 from Arabidopsis thaliana. The performance of the pathways was evaluated with a twin-layer biosensor, which allowed the monitoring of both the intermediate (fatty aldehyde), and end product (alkane) formation. The highest alkane production, as indicated by the biosensor, was achieved with a pathway consisting of AAR and ADO from S. elongatus. The performance of this pathway was further improved by balancing the relative expression levels of the enzymes to limit the accumulation of the intermediate fatty aldehyde. Finally, the acetogen A. woodii was used to produce acetate from CO(2) and H(2), and the acetate was used for alkane production by the engineered A. baylyi, thereby leading to the net production of long-chain alkanes from CO(2). CONCLUSIONS: A modular system for the production of drop-in liquid fuels from CO(2) was demonstrated. Among the studied synthetic pathways, the combination of ADO and AAR from S. elongatus was found to be the most efficient in heterologous alkane production in A. baylyi. Furthermore, limiting the accumulation of the fatty aldehyde intermediate was found to be beneficial for the alkane production. Nevertheless, the alkane productivity of the system remained low, representing a major challenge for future research. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13068-018-1229-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-08-21 /pmc/articles/PMC6102805/ /pubmed/30151056 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-018-1229-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Lehtinen, Tapio
Virtanen, Henri
Santala, Suvi
Santala, Ville
Production of alkanes from CO(2) by engineered bacteria
title Production of alkanes from CO(2) by engineered bacteria
title_full Production of alkanes from CO(2) by engineered bacteria
title_fullStr Production of alkanes from CO(2) by engineered bacteria
title_full_unstemmed Production of alkanes from CO(2) by engineered bacteria
title_short Production of alkanes from CO(2) by engineered bacteria
title_sort production of alkanes from co(2) by engineered bacteria
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6102805/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30151056
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-018-1229-2
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