Creating multifunctional synthetic lichen platforms for sustainable biosynthesis of biofuel precursors

Technical Report · Thu Nov 07 23:00:00 EST 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2476519· OSTI ID:2476519

Betenbaugh, Michael ^[1]; Young, Jamey ^[2]; Bohutskyi, Pavlo ^[2]; Guarnieri, Michael ^[2]; Magnuson, Jon ^[2]; Zengler, Karsten ^[2]

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1. Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States); Johns Hopkins University
2. Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States)

In this project, we were creating a sustainable platform for biofuel production, utilizing carbon-fixing autotrophs to supply oxygen and organic substrates to heterotrophic partners, which in turn produce carbon dioxide to feed the autotrophs. This symbiotic lichen community could lower the input cost, optimize metabolic exchanges and improve the generation of biofuel precursors through multi-omics driven genetic engineering. The cyanobacteria Synechococcus elongatus (S. elongatus) was used as the primary autotroph to provide oxygen and organic substrates, especially sucrose, to a co-culture system. The strain with overexpression of sucrose transporter cscB demonstrated a significant increase in sucrose production under salt stress as what we expected. We also implemented 13C metabolic flux analysis on the sucrose secreting strain S. elongatus cscB-NaCl. Next, transporters proteins like glutamate exporter mscCG from Corynebacterium glutamicum was overexpressed in S. elongatus to improve metabolite exchange.

• Research Organization: Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
• DOE Contract Number: SC0019388
• OSTI ID: 2476519
• Report Number(s): SC0019388
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English