Capture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen by engineered Escherichia coli: hydrogen-dependent CO reduction to formate.

In times of global climate change and the fear of dwindling resources, we are facing different considerable challenges such as the replacement of fossil fuel-based energy carriers with the coincident maintenance of the increasing energy supply of our growing world population. Therefore, CO capturing and H storing solutions are urgently needed. In this study, we demonstrate the production of a functional and biotechnological interesting enzyme complex from acetogenic bacteria, the hydrogen-dependent CO reductase (HDCR), in the well-known model organism Escherichia coli.