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Cyanophycin Modifications—Widening the Application Potential

A circular bioeconomy approach is essential to slowing down the fearsome ongoing climate change. Replacing polymers derived from fossil fuels with biodegradable biobased polymers is one crucial part of this strategy. Cyanophycin is a polymer consisting of amino acids produced by cyanobacteria with m...

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Autores principales: Kwiatos, Natalia, Steinbüchel, Alexander
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8560796/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34738009
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2021.763804
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author Kwiatos, Natalia
Steinbüchel, Alexander
author_facet Kwiatos, Natalia
Steinbüchel, Alexander
author_sort Kwiatos, Natalia
collection PubMed
description A circular bioeconomy approach is essential to slowing down the fearsome ongoing climate change. Replacing polymers derived from fossil fuels with biodegradable biobased polymers is one crucial part of this strategy. Cyanophycin is a polymer consisting of amino acids produced by cyanobacteria with many potential applications. It consists mainly of aspartic acid and arginine, however, its composition may be changed at the production stage depending on the conditions of the polymerization reaction, as well as the characteristics of the enzyme cyanophycin synthetase, which is the key enzyme of catalysis. Cyanophycin synthetases from many sources were expressed heterologously in bacteria, yeast and plants aiming at high yields of the polymer or at introducing different amino acids into the structure. Furthermore, cyanophycin can be modified at the post-production level by chemical and enzymatic methods. In addition, cyanophycin can be combined with other compounds to yield hybrid materials. Although cyanophycin is an attractive polymer for industry, its usage as a sole material remains so far limited. Finding new variants of cyanophycin may bring this polymer closer to real-world applications. This short review summarizes all modifications of cyanophycin and its variants that have been reported within the literature until now, additionally addressing their potential applications.
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spelling pubmed-85607962021-11-03 Cyanophycin Modifications—Widening the Application Potential Kwiatos, Natalia Steinbüchel, Alexander Front Bioeng Biotechnol Bioengineering and Biotechnology A circular bioeconomy approach is essential to slowing down the fearsome ongoing climate change. Replacing polymers derived from fossil fuels with biodegradable biobased polymers is one crucial part of this strategy. Cyanophycin is a polymer consisting of amino acids produced by cyanobacteria with many potential applications. It consists mainly of aspartic acid and arginine, however, its composition may be changed at the production stage depending on the conditions of the polymerization reaction, as well as the characteristics of the enzyme cyanophycin synthetase, which is the key enzyme of catalysis. Cyanophycin synthetases from many sources were expressed heterologously in bacteria, yeast and plants aiming at high yields of the polymer or at introducing different amino acids into the structure. Furthermore, cyanophycin can be modified at the post-production level by chemical and enzymatic methods. In addition, cyanophycin can be combined with other compounds to yield hybrid materials. Although cyanophycin is an attractive polymer for industry, its usage as a sole material remains so far limited. Finding new variants of cyanophycin may bring this polymer closer to real-world applications. This short review summarizes all modifications of cyanophycin and its variants that have been reported within the literature until now, additionally addressing their potential applications. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-10-19 /pmc/articles/PMC8560796/ /pubmed/34738009 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2021.763804 Text en Copyright © 2021 Kwiatos and Steinbüchel. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Bioengineering and Biotechnology
Kwiatos, Natalia
Steinbüchel, Alexander
Cyanophycin Modifications—Widening the Application Potential
title Cyanophycin Modifications—Widening the Application Potential
title_full Cyanophycin Modifications—Widening the Application Potential
title_fullStr Cyanophycin Modifications—Widening the Application Potential
title_full_unstemmed Cyanophycin Modifications—Widening the Application Potential
title_short Cyanophycin Modifications—Widening the Application Potential
title_sort cyanophycin modifications—widening the application potential
topic Bioengineering and Biotechnology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8560796/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34738009
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2021.763804
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