蓝细菌光驱固碳细胞工厂的合成生物学开发策略

光合生物制造技术是指以光合自养生物为底盘,通过光合固碳过程,将太阳能和二氧化碳直接转化为生物燃料和生物基化学品的全新生物制造模式。发展光合生物制造技术可以同时实现固碳减排和清洁生产。蓝细菌是极具潜力的微生物光合底盘,也为光合生物制造技术开发高效的光驱固碳细胞工厂提供了重要平台。着眼于未来的规模化应用需求,蓝细菌光驱固碳细胞工厂需要在物质能量转化效率、工业过程中的生长和生产稳定性以及与工程过程的适配性这三方面进一步提升。现从光能的捕集和利用、碳源的固定和转化、逆境胁迫的适应以及工程过程的适配这四个角度,介绍了如何应用合成生物学工具和策略,人工设计、开发进而优化蓝细菌光驱固碳细胞工厂,以满足光合生物制造技术大规模应用的需要;最后,总结、介绍了本领域的最新研究进展,并对未来发展方向进行了展望。     

应用合成生物学策略改良光合蓝细菌

蓝细菌是一类能够直接利用光能和CO_2作为唯一能源和碳源进行生长的光合微生物。近年来,光合蓝细菌以其独特的优势作为"自养型细胞工厂"合成了多种燃料及化学品。以光合蓝细菌中的几种模式生物为例,总结近年来以蓝细菌为工程菌株合成生物燃料及化学品的研究进展,对目前蓝细菌菌株存在的固有问题进行分析,并提出应用合成生物学进行菌种改良的方案。     

应用合成生物学构建蓝细菌细胞工厂的研究进展

蓝细菌是一类能进行放氧光合作用的原核微生物,具有生长速度快、光合效率高、易于基因遗传操作等特点。它们能够将捕获的光能和二氧化碳转化为生物能源分子,在解决当前社会面临的能源紧缺和环境污染等问题上有着重要的理论和应用研究价值。近年来,随着合成生物学的迅猛发展,构建以蓝细菌为底盘的“人工细胞工厂”用于合成各类生物能源和精细化学产品取得了令人瞩目的成绩。重点介绍了应用合成生物学构建蓝细菌细胞合成工厂的研究进展,并对“光合自养型细胞工厂”面临的两大问题——产物毒性问题以及细胞内氧化胁迫问题进行了重点讨论。     

蓝细菌细胞工厂合成聚合物单体的研究进展

蓝细菌是当前合成生物学研究的热门底盘生物之一,是光合自养底盘微生物的典型代表。随着化石资源的逐渐枯竭和碳排放所导致的全球变暖问题的加剧,以CO2为碳源的蓝细菌细胞工厂的研究又迎来了一次新的浪潮。长期以来,人们对于蓝细菌细胞工厂的关注点主要是在生物能源的生产,比如液体燃料及氢气等。蓝细菌细胞工厂研究的主要瓶颈之一是其低效率导致的经济性问题。这一问题对于成本异常敏感的能源产品而言尤其突出。聚合物作为人类生产生活的重要基础,属于附加值较大的大宗化学品,对克服蓝细菌细胞工厂商业化所面临的经济性问题具有优势,近来得到了越来越多的关注。本文对蓝细菌的聚合物单体生产的相关研究进行了系统综述,阐述了各类单体的增产策略,并回顾了蓝细菌细胞工厂应用的相关技术,提出了蓝细菌合成生物学的应用领域所存在的问题并对未来的研究进行了展望。     

从碳代谢流角度新解代谢工程策略

代谢工程通过改造微生物代谢过程,进而利用微生物生产各种有用的医药、化学产品及工业原料.本文从细胞代谢中碳代谢流的角度入手,将代谢工程的传统与新型策略进行分类解析.其中,传统代谢工程手段主要对目标代谢路径的关键酶进行改造,通过过表达或基因敲除增大目的代谢路径碳代谢流.然而,在代谢路径改造需要进行多基因表达的情况下,传统手段在如何最佳表达多种酶使碳流通畅上会受到很大限制.本文提出利用高碳流路径,通过简单基因改造以获得高效目标产物生产的新策略.同时,随着合成生物学与系统生物学的发展,精细调控多基因表达成为可能.本文进一步举例讨论了代谢工程中粗略与精细调控基因表达水平对碳流的影响,以期对教学与前沿科研有助.     

辅因子在微生物细胞工厂中的代谢调控与应用*

生物体中大部分酶催化反应都需要辅因子参与,辅因子平衡对维持正常的细胞代谢至关重要,而辅因子失衡则会导致细胞生长和生产的紊乱。在微生物细胞工厂的构建中,通过调节辅因子代谢平衡来提高产物合成途径的效率,从而调控细胞生长与产物生产,使代谢流能够最大限度地流向目标产物,已经成为代谢调控的重要手段。目前常见的用于代谢调控的辅因子有NAD(P)H/NAD(P)⁺、辅酶、ATP/ADP等。围绕这几种辅因子的代谢途径及功能分类进行了综述,并总结了微生物中不同产物利用辅因子平衡策略进行合成调控的研究,以期为各类化合物的高效生物合成提供参考。     

应用合成生物学策略优化光合蓝细菌底盘

光合蓝细菌具有一系列良好的特质,包括利用太阳能固定CO2、营养需求低、生长迅速以及遗传背景简单等.近年来,光合蓝细菌作为生产可再生燃料和精细化学制品的“自养型人工细胞工厂”引起了社会的广泛关注,促进了相关研究的升温.目前在应用合成生物学的技术和研究策略来优化光合蓝细菌作为底盘生物等方面已取得了一些令人鼓舞的进展.文中综述了近年来在光合蓝细菌底盘优化的方法、光合效率的提高以及各种耐受性蓝细菌底盘的构建方面的进展,并对光合蓝细菌底盘构建的工业应用价值进行了讨论.     

吃进“废气”,吐出“宝贝”——记代谢工程改造光合细胞工厂生产异戊二烯

异戊二烯主要用于生产合成橡胶,还用于生产多种精细化工品及黏合剂和润滑剂。目前异戊二烯完全由石化原料生产。随着全球气候变暖和化石资源的日益短缺,构建以廉价生物质或CO2为原料的异戊二烯生物法合成线路已引起研究者的极大关注。中国科学院上海植物生理生态研究所杨琛课题组在蓝细菌中构建异戊二烯合成途径,利用代谢流量分析和代谢组学分析指导蓝细菌中异戊二烯合成途径的设计和改造,通过循环鉴定合成途径限速步骤和解除限速步骤,逐步提高异戊二烯合成途径的代谢通量,最终经过一系列改造后获得的工程菌可将光合作用所固定的碳的40%用于异戊二烯的合成,产量高达1.26 g/L。除了高效合成异戊二烯,该研究所构建的工程菌还可以作为平台,构建光合自养细胞工厂,合成各种萜类化合物。     

微生物细胞工厂的代谢调控

代谢调控是构建微生物细胞工厂的重要技术手段。随着合成生物学技术的不断突破,挖掘和人工设计的高质量调控元件大幅度提升了对细胞代谢网络的改造能力;代谢调控研究也已从单基因的静态调控发展到系统水平上的智能精确动态调控。文中简要综述了近30年来代谢途径表达调控技术在代谢工程领域的研究进展。     

微生物细胞工厂中多基因表达的控制策略

微生物代谢工程和合成生物学是当今微生物技术领域研究的热点,微生物的生长速度快、容易进行大规模培养;遗传背景清楚、遗传操作简便可靠等性质使其在与人类生活相关的多个领域中起到重要的作用。微生物细胞工厂是指人工设计的能够进行物质生产的微生物代谢体系。许多微生物细胞工厂的构建由于引入多个基因或整条代谢途径,而可能导致代谢失衡、部分代谢中间产物积累等问题,需要使用一定的调控策略加以控制。以下对涉及多个基因作用的微生物细胞工厂中所使用的调控策略,分为若干层次进行了总结和探讨,并对今后多基因控制策略的发展方向进行了预测与展望。     

Progress and perspective on cyanobacterial glycogen metabolism engineering

As important oxygenic photoautotrophs, cyanobacteria are also generally considered as one of the most promising microbial chassis for photosynthetic biomanufacturing. Diverse synthetic biology and metabolic engineering approaches have been developed to enable the efficient harnessing of carbon and energy flow toward the synthesis of desired metabolites in cyanobacterial cell factories. Glycogen metabolism works as the most important natural carbon sink mechanism and reserve carbon source, storing a large portion of carbon and energy from the Calvin-Benson-Bassham (CBB) cycle, and thus is traditionally recognized as a promising engineering target to optimize the efficacy of cyanobacterial cell factories. Multiple strategies and approaches have been designed and adopted to engineer glycogen metabolism in cyanobacteria, leading to the successful regulation of glycogen synthesis and storage contents in cyanobacteria cells. However, disturbed glycogen metabolism results in weakened cellular physiological functionalities, thereby diminishing the robustness of metabolism. In addition, the effects of glycogen removal as a metabolic engineering strategy to enhance photosynthetic biosynthesis are still controversial. This review focuses on the efforts and effects of glycogen metabolism engineering on the physiology and metabolism of cyanobacterial chassis strains and cell factories. The perspectives and prospects provided herein are expected to inspire novel strategies and tools to achieve ideal control over carbon and energy flow for biomanufacturing.     

Tailoring cyanobacterial cell factory for improved industrial properties

Photosynthetic biomanufacturing provides a promising solution for sustainable production of biofuels and biochemicals. Cyanobacteria are among the most promising microbial platforms for the construction of photosynthetic cell factories. Metabolic engineering of cyanobacteria has enabled effective photosynthetic synthesis of diverse natural or non-natural metabolites, while commercialization of photosynthetic biomanufacturing is usually restricted by process and economic feasibilities. In actual outdoor conditions, active cell growth and product synthesis is restricted to narrow light exposure windows of the day-night cycles and is threatened by diverse physical, chemical, and biological environmental stresses. For biomass harvesting and bioproduct recovery, energy and cost consuming processing and equipment is required, which further decreases the economic and environmental competitiveness of the entire process. To facilitate scaled photosynthetic biomanufacturing, lots of efforts have been made to engineer cyanobacterial cell properties required by robust & continual cultivation and convenient & efficient recovery. In this review, we specifically summarized recently reported engineering strategies on optimizing industrial properties of cyanobacterial cells. Through systematically re-editing the metabolism, morphology, mutualism interaction of cyanobacterial chassis cells, the adaptabilities and compatibilities of the cyanobacterial cell factories to the industrial process could be significantly improved. Cell growth and product synthesis of the tailored cyanobacterial cells could be expanded and maintained at night and in stressful environments, while convenient biomass harvesting could also be expected. For developing more feasible cyanobacterial photosynthetic biomanufacturing in large scale, we here propose the importance of tailoring industrial properties of cyanobacteria and outline the directions that should be exploited in the future.     

蓝藻光驱固碳合成糖类物质的技术研究进展*

糖类物质在食品、医药、日化、发酵领域有着广泛应用,对人类健康和社会发展有着重要意义。发展新型糖类物质合成技术有利于解决传统植物生物质“采集-炼制”产糖模式所面临的高成本、长周期、时空限制等风险和问题。蓝藻是一类重要的光自养微生物,也是极具潜力的新型微生物光合平台,发展蓝藻光驱固碳产糖技术有望实现二氧化碳向特定糖类产物的一站式定向转化,实现糖类物质合成的模式变革。糖类物质本身在蓝藻天然光合代谢网络中发挥重要作用,特别是卡尔文循环、糖原代谢、相容性物质代谢等几个重要生理模块的运转都是以不同糖类物质的转化来驱动的;而合成生物技术的发展又为光合产糖网络重塑和扩展注入了新的驱动力,在产品类型、合成模式及生产效率上显著提升了蓝藻光驱固碳产糖技术的发展和应用潜力。针对蓝藻光驱固碳产糖技术的发展应用,从模式、策略、产物等不同维度总结了相关进展和风险挑战,并对其未来前景和方向进行了展望。     

Thylakoid membrane perforations and connectivity enable intracellular traffic in cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria, the progenitors of plant and algal chloroplasts, enabled aerobic life on earth by introducing oxygenic photosynthesis. In most cyanobacteria, the photosynthetic membranes are arranged in multiple, seemingly disconnected, concentric shells. In such an arrangement, it is unclear how intracellular trafficking proceeds and how different layers of the photosynthetic membranes communicate with each other to maintain photosynthetic homeostasis. Using electron microscope tomography, we show that the photosynthetic membranes of two distantly related cyanobacterial species contain multiple perforations. These perforations, which are filled with particles of different sizes including ribosomes, glycogen granules and lipid bodies, allow for traffic throughout the cell. In addition, different layers of the photosynthetic membranes are joined together by internal bridges formed by branching and fusion of the membranes. The result is a highly connected network, similar to that of higher-plant chloroplasts, allowing water-soluble and lipid-soluble molecules to diffuse through the entire membrane network. Notably, we observed intracellular membrane-bounded vesicles, which were frequently fused to the photosynthetic membranes and may play a role in transport to these membranes.     

蓝细菌光驱固碳合成蔗糖技术的发展与展望

生物炼制技术体系是缓解能源和环境危机,推动社会可持续发展的重要选择,而充足的糖原料供应是生物炼制的基础。蓝细菌光驱固碳合成蔗糖是一种潜力巨大的新型糖原料供应路线。基于高效的蓝细菌光驱固碳细胞工厂,可以在单平台上以太阳能为驱动将二氧化碳和水直接转化为蔗糖,过程简单、产品明确、易于提取,而且可以同时达到固碳减排和供应糖原料的效果,具有重要的研究和应用价值。本文回顾了蓝细菌光驱固碳合成蔗糖技术的发展现状,从合成机制、代谢工程策略、技术延伸应用等层面对其最新进展和所遇到的问题进行了总结介绍,并对该技术未来发展方向进行了展望。     

Occurrence of Hydrogenases in Cyanobacteria and Anoxygenic Photosynthetic Bacteria: Implications for the Phylogenetic Origin of Cyanobacterial and Algal Hydrogenases

Hydrogenases are important enzymes in the energy metabolism of microorganisms. Therefore, they are widespread in prokaryotes. We analyzed the occurrence of hydrogenases in cyanobacteria and deduced a FeFe-hydrogenase in three different heliobacterial strains. This allowed the first phylogenetic analysis of the hydrogenases of all five major groups of photosynthetic bacteria (heliobacteria, green nonsulfur bacteria, green sulfur bacteria, photosynthetic proteobacteria, and cyanobacteria). In the case of both hydrogenases found in cyanobacteria (uptake and bidirectional), the green nonsulfur bacterium Chloroflexus aurantiacus was found to be the closest ancestor. Apart from a close relation between the archaebacterial and the green sulfur bacterial sulfhydrogenase, we could not find any evidence for horizontal gene transfer. Therefore, it would be most parsimonious if a Chloroflexus-like bacterium was the ancestor of Chloroflexus aurantiacus and cyanobacteria. After having transmitted both hydrogenase genes vertically to the different cyanobacterial species, either no, one, or both enzymes were lost, thus producing the current distribution. Our data and the available data from the literature on the occurrence of cyanobacterial hydrogenases show that the cyanobacterial uptake hydrogenase is strictly linked to the occurrence of the nitrogenase. Nevertheless, we did identify a nitrogen-fixing Synechococcus strain without an uptake hydrogenase. Since we could not find genes of a FeFe-hydrogenase in any of the tested cyanobacteria, although strains performing anoxygenic photosynthesis were also included in the analysis, a cyanobacterial origin of the contemporary FeFe-hydrogenase of algal plastids seems unlikely. Electronic Supplementary Material Electronic Supplementary material is available for this article at and accessible for authorised users. [Reviewing Editor: Dr. Lauren Ancel Meyers]     

Convergent Evolution of Polysaccharide Debranching Defines a Common Mechanism for Starch Accumulation in Cyanobacteria and Plants

Starch, unlike hydrosoluble glycogen particles, aggregates into insoluble, semicrystalline granules. In photosynthetic eukaryotes, the transition to starch accumulation occurred after plastid endosymbiosis from a preexisting cytosolic host glycogen metabolism network. This involved the recruitment of a debranching enzyme of chlamydial pathogen origin. The latter is thought to be responsible for removing misplaced branches that would otherwise yield a water-soluble polysaccharide. We now report the implication of starch debranching enzyme in the aggregation of semicrystalline granules of single-cell cyanobacteria that accumulate both glycogen and starch-like polymers. We show that an enzyme of analogous nature to the plant debranching enzyme but of a different bacterial origin was recruited for the same purpose in these organisms. Remarkably, both the plant and cyanobacterial enzymes have evolved through convergent evolution, showing novel yet identical substrate specificities from a preexisting enzyme that originally displayed the much narrower substrate preferences required for glycogen catabolism.     

The evolution of glycogen and starch metabolism in eukaryotes gives molecular clues to understand the establishment of plastid endosymbiosis

Solid semi-crystalline starch and hydrosoluble glycogen define two distinct physical states of the same type of storage polysaccharide. Appearance of semi-crystalline storage polysaccharides appears linked to the requirement of unicellular diazotrophic cyanobacteria to fuel nitrogenase and protect it from oxygen through respiration of vast amounts of stored carbon. Starch metabolism itself resulted from the merging of the bacterial and eukaryote pathways of storage polysaccharide metabolism after endosymbiosis of the plastid. This generated the three Archaeplastida lineages: the green algae and land plants (Chloroplastida), the red algae (Rhodophyceae), and the glaucophytes (Glaucophyta). Reconstruction of starch metabolism in the common ancestor of Archaeplastida suggests that polysaccharide synthesis was ancestrally cytosolic. In addition, the synthesis of cytosolic starch from the ADP-glucose exported from the cyanobacterial symbiont possibly defined the original metabolic flux by which the cyanobiont provided photosynthate to its host. Additional evidence supporting this scenario include the monophyletic origin of the major carbon translocators of the inner membrane of eukaryote plastids which are sisters to nucleotide-sugar transporters of the eukaryote endomembrane system. It also includes the extent of enzyme subfunctionalization that came as a consequence of the rewiring of this pathway to the chloroplasts in the green algae. Recent evidence suggests that, at the time of endosymbiosis, obligate intracellular energy parasites related to extant Chlamydia have donated important genes to the ancestral starch metabolism network.