Enhancing photosynthetic production of glycogen-rich biomass for use as a fermentation feedstock.

Current sources of fermentation feedstocks, i.e. corn, sugar cane, or plant biomass, fall short of demand for liquid transportation fuels and commodity chemicals in the United States.

Optimization of a T7-RNA polymerase system in Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 mirrors the protein overproduction phenotype from E. coli BL21(DE3).

With the goal of expanding the diversity of tools available for controlling gene expression in cyanobacteria, the T7-RNA polymerase gene expression system from E. coli BL21(DE3) was adapted and systematically engineered for robust function Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002, a fast-growing saltwater strain.

Light-optimized growth of cyanobacterial cultures: Growth phases and productivity of biomass and secreted molecules in light-limited batch growth.

Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic microorganisms whose metabolism can be modified through genetic engineering for production of a wide variety of molecules directly from CO, light, and nutrients. Diverse molecules have been produced in small quantities by engineered cyanobacteria to demonstrate the feasibility of photosynthetic biorefineries. Consequently, there is interest in engineering these microorganisms to increase titer and productivity to meet industrial metrics.

Inhibition of Cyanobacterial Growth on a Municipal Wastewater Sidestream Is Impacted by Temperature.

Sidestreams in wastewater treatment plants can serve as concentrated sources of nutrients (i.e., nitrogen and phosphorus) to support the growth of photosynthetic organisms that ultimately serve as feedstock for production of fuels and chemicals.

Engineering photosynthetic production of L-lysine.

L-lysine and other amino acids are commonly produced through fermentation using strains of heterotrophic bacteria such as Corynebacterium glutamicum. Given the large amount of sugar this process consumes, direct photosynthetic production is intriguing alternative. In this study, we report the development of a cyanobacterium, Synechococcus sp.

CRISPR interference as a titratable, trans-acting regulatory tool for metabolic engineering in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7002.

Trans-acting regulators provide novel opportunities to study essential genes and regulate metabolic pathways. We have adapted the clustered regularly interspersed palindromic repeats (CRISPR) system from Streptococcus pyogenes to repress genes in trans in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7002 (hereafter PCC 7002).

Functional genomics analysis of free fatty acid production under continuous phosphate limiting conditions.

Free fatty acids (FFA) are an attractive platform chemical that serves as a functional intermediate in metabolic pathways for producing oleochemicals. Many groups have established strains of Escherichia coli capable of producing various chain-length mixtures of FFA by heterologous expression of acyl-ACP thioesterases. For example, high levels of dodecanoic acid are produced by an E.