Chemical Engineering

Cyanobacteria have gained a great attention as promising ethanol producer. Genetically engineered cyanobacteria can produce ethanol from the atmospheric carbon dioxide using sunlight as the sole energy source. Th eir rapid growth rate, low land requirement for cultivation, natural diversity and potential to genetic engineering off er great advantages over competing resources such as wood and agricultural crops/residues. However, cyanobacterial ethanol production is still a long way to commercialization due to low productivity. Due to the abundant NADPH produced from photosynthesis, NADPH-utilizing pathway is more favored than NADH-utilizing pathway in cyanobacteria.

 

 

 

By reducing the NADH-dependence in ethanol production pathway, we can exploit the abundant NADPH-pool and increase the ethanol production. It is also expected that increased NADPH supply through metabolic engineering can create a synergistic eff ect for ethanol production. In this talk, we introduce our research to increase ethanol production of cyanobacteria by applying these approaches.