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Cyanobacteria as cell factories for the photosynthetic production of sucrose

Biofuels and other biologically manufactured sustainable goods are growing in popularity and demand. Carbohydrate feedstocks required for industrial fermentation processes have traditionally been supplied by plant biomass, but the large quantities required to produce replacement commodity products m...

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Autores principales: Santos-Merino, María, Yun, Lisa, Ducat, Daniel C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9971976/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36865782
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1126032
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author Santos-Merino, María
Yun, Lisa
Ducat, Daniel C.
author_facet Santos-Merino, María
Yun, Lisa
Ducat, Daniel C.
author_sort Santos-Merino, María
collection PubMed
description Biofuels and other biologically manufactured sustainable goods are growing in popularity and demand. Carbohydrate feedstocks required for industrial fermentation processes have traditionally been supplied by plant biomass, but the large quantities required to produce replacement commodity products may prevent the long-term feasibility of this approach without alternative strategies to produce sugar feedstocks. Cyanobacteria are under consideration as potential candidates for sustainable production of carbohydrate feedstocks, with potentially lower land and water requirements relative to plants. Several cyanobacterial strains have been genetically engineered to export significant quantities of sugars, especially sucrose. Sucrose is not only naturally synthesized and accumulated by cyanobacteria as a compatible solute to tolerate high salt environments, but also an easily fermentable disaccharide used by many heterotrophic bacteria as a carbon source. In this review, we provide a comprehensive summary of the current knowledge of the endogenous cyanobacterial sucrose synthesis and degradation pathways. We also summarize genetic modifications that have been found to increase sucrose production and secretion. Finally, we consider the current state of synthetic microbial consortia that rely on sugar-secreting cyanobacterial strains, which are co-cultivated alongside heterotrophic microbes able to directly convert the sugars into higher-value compounds (e.g., polyhydroxybutyrates, 3-hydroxypropionic acid, or dyes) in a single-pot reaction. We summarize recent advances reported in such cyanobacteria/heterotroph co-cultivation strategies and provide a perspective on future developments that are likely required to realize their bioindustrial potential.
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spelling pubmed-99719762023-03-01 Cyanobacteria as cell factories for the photosynthetic production of sucrose Santos-Merino, María Yun, Lisa Ducat, Daniel C. Front Microbiol Microbiology Biofuels and other biologically manufactured sustainable goods are growing in popularity and demand. Carbohydrate feedstocks required for industrial fermentation processes have traditionally been supplied by plant biomass, but the large quantities required to produce replacement commodity products may prevent the long-term feasibility of this approach without alternative strategies to produce sugar feedstocks. Cyanobacteria are under consideration as potential candidates for sustainable production of carbohydrate feedstocks, with potentially lower land and water requirements relative to plants. Several cyanobacterial strains have been genetically engineered to export significant quantities of sugars, especially sucrose. Sucrose is not only naturally synthesized and accumulated by cyanobacteria as a compatible solute to tolerate high salt environments, but also an easily fermentable disaccharide used by many heterotrophic bacteria as a carbon source. In this review, we provide a comprehensive summary of the current knowledge of the endogenous cyanobacterial sucrose synthesis and degradation pathways. We also summarize genetic modifications that have been found to increase sucrose production and secretion. Finally, we consider the current state of synthetic microbial consortia that rely on sugar-secreting cyanobacterial strains, which are co-cultivated alongside heterotrophic microbes able to directly convert the sugars into higher-value compounds (e.g., polyhydroxybutyrates, 3-hydroxypropionic acid, or dyes) in a single-pot reaction. We summarize recent advances reported in such cyanobacteria/heterotroph co-cultivation strategies and provide a perspective on future developments that are likely required to realize their bioindustrial potential. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-02-14 /pmc/articles/PMC9971976/ /pubmed/36865782 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1126032 Text en Copyright © 2023 Santos-Merino, Yun and Ducat. 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 Microbiology
Santos-Merino, María
Yun, Lisa
Ducat, Daniel C.
Cyanobacteria as cell factories for the photosynthetic production of sucrose
title Cyanobacteria as cell factories for the photosynthetic production of sucrose
title_full Cyanobacteria as cell factories for the photosynthetic production of sucrose
title_fullStr Cyanobacteria as cell factories for the photosynthetic production of sucrose
title_full_unstemmed Cyanobacteria as cell factories for the photosynthetic production of sucrose
title_short Cyanobacteria as cell factories for the photosynthetic production of sucrose
title_sort cyanobacteria as cell factories for the photosynthetic production of sucrose
topic Microbiology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9971976/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36865782
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1126032
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