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Title: The dual effect of a ferredoxin-hydrogenase fusion protein in vivo: successful divergence of the photosynthetic electron flux towards hydrogen production and elevated oxygen tolerance

Journal Article · · Biotechnology for Biofuels
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  1. Tel Aviv Univ., Ramat Aviv (Israel). The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Science. Dept. of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants
  2. GeneBiologics, LLC, Boulder, CO (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Background: Hydrogen photo-production in green algae, catalyzed by the enzyme [FeFe]-hydrogenase (HydA), is considered a promising source of renewable clean energy. Yet, a significant increase in hydrogen production efficiency is necessary for industrial scale-up. We have previously shown that a major challenge to be resolved is the inferior competitiveness of HydA with NADPH production, catalyzed by ferredoxin-NADP+-reductase (FNR). In this work, we explored the in vivo hydrogen production efficiency of Fd-HydA, where the electron donor ferredoxin (Fd) is fused to HydA and expressed in the model organism Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Results: We show that once the Fd-HydA fusion gene is expressed in micro-algal cells of C. reinhardtii, the fusion enzyme is able to intercept photosynthetic electrons and use them for efficient hydrogen production, thus supporting the previous observations made in vitro. We found that Fd-HydA has a ~4.5-fold greater photosynthetic hydrogen production rate standardized for hydrogenase amount (PHPRH) than that of the native HydA in vivo. Furthermore, we provide evidence suggesting that the fusion protein is more resistant to oxygen than the native HydA. Conclusions: The in vivo photosynthetic activity of the Fd-HydA enzyme surpasses that of the native HydA and shows higher oxygen tolerance. Therefore, our results provide a solid platform for further engineering efforts towards efficient hydrogen production in microalgae through the expression of synthetic enzymes

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1626974
Journal Information:
Biotechnology for Biofuels, Vol. 9, Issue 1; ISSN 1754-6834
Publisher:
BioMed CentralCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (17)

O 2 sensitivity and H 2 production activity of hydrogenases—A review journal August 2019
Microalgal biohydrogen photoproduction: scaling up challenges and the ways forward journal September 2019
Evolution of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii ferredoxins and their interactions with [FeFe]-hydrogenases journal June 2017
Absolute quantification of selected photosynthetic electron transfer proteins in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii in the presence and absence of oxygen journal March 2018
Metalloprotein switches that display chemical-dependent electron transfer in cells journal December 2018
ChimeraUGEM: unsupervised gene expression modeling in any given organism journal February 2019
Solving the Riddle of the Evolution of Shine-Dalgarno Based Translation in Chloroplasts journal September 2019
Enhancing heterologous expression in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii by transcript sequence optimization journal March 2018
Image-Processing Software for High-Throughput Quantification of Colony Luminescence journal January 2019
Water-splitting-based, sustainable and efficient H2 production in green algae as achieved by substrate limitation of the Calvin–Benson–Bassham cycle journal March 2018
An endogenous microRNA (miRNA1166.1) can regulate photobio-H2 production in eukaryotic green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii journal May 2018
Engineered Thermoanaerobacterium aotearoense with nfnAB knockout for improved hydrogen production from lignocellulose hydrolysates journal September 2019
Re-routing photosynthetic energy for continuous hydrogen production in vivo journal November 2019
Solving the Riddle of the Evolution of Shine-Dalgarno Based Translation in Chloroplasts journal November 2019
Microalgal hydrogen production: prospects of an essential technology for a clean and sustainable energy economy journal February 2017
Green Algal Hydrogenase Activity Is Outcompeted by Carbon Fixation before Inactivation by Oxygen Takes Place journal May 2018
The Integration of Multiple Nuclear-Encoded Transgenes in the Green Alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Results in Higher Transcription Levels journal February 2020


Figures / Tables (4)