Direct Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Value-Added Chemicals Using Engineered Cyanobacteria

Concerns about energy security and environmental issues has focused attention on metabolic engineering photosynthetic microorganisms to convert CO2 to value-added chemicals. Thus, I present the recent published research results of solar-to-chemical and solar-to-fuel using engineered cyanobacteria[1], including photosynthetic production of biodiesel (fatty acid ethyl ester), acetone, phytochemicals (amorphadiene and squalene)[2-4]. To achieve the goals using cyanobacteria, modular pathway engineering has been applied to reconstruct the metabolic pathways by introducing de novo pathway and re-directing carbon fluxes in cyanobacteria. Furthermore, a perspective of the photo-bioprocess engineering will be discussed to achieve the industrial goals of carbon utilization.

[1] Woo, H.M., Solar-to-chemical and solar-to-fuel production from CO2 by metabolically engineered microorganisms. Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 2017, 45:1–7.
[2] Lee, H.J.; Choi, J.; Lee, S.M.; Um, Y.; Sim, S.J.; Kim, Y.; Woo, H.M., Photosynthetic CO2 conversion to fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs) using engineered cyanobacteria, J. Agric. Food. Chem. 2017, 65(6) 1087-1092.
[3] Choi, S.Y.; Lee, H.J.; Choi, J.; Kim, J.; Sim, S.J.; Um, Y.; Kim, Y.; Lee, T.S.; Keasling, J.; Woo, H.M., Photosynthetic conversion of CO2 to farnesyl diphosphate-derived phytochemicals (amorpha-4,11-diene and squalene) by engineered cyanobacteria, Biotechnol. Biofuels. 2016, 9:202.
[4] Chwa, J.W.; Kim, W.J.; Sim, S.J.; Um, Y.; Woo, H.M., Engineering of a modular and synthetic phosphoketolase pathway for photosynthetic production of acetone from CO2 in Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 under light and aerobic condition, Plant Biotechnol. J. 2016,14: 1768-1776.