CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Cyanobacteria are the only prokaryotes that perform plant-likeoxygenic photosynthesis and convert sunlight-derived energy intobiomass. They possess several advantages as hosts for biotechnologicalapplications, including simple growth requirements, ease ofgenetic manipulation and robust high-scale production. At present,many bioindustrial processes rely on the fermentation of heterotrophicbacteria to produce various fine chemicals. Nevertheless, theeconomic viability of these production schemes is limited by the costof carbon substrates used in the fermentation processes. Cyanobacteria,endowed with photosynthesis system to fix carbon dioxideinto reduced form, are ideal biosynthetic machinery for sustainableproduction of various chemicals and biofuels. In this context, we aimto develop a cyanobacterial platform for the production of high valuemolecules of industrial interest. For this purpose, and as a proof ofconcept, we designed and constructed recombinant cyanobacteriastrains capable of producing methyl-branched chain lipids (MBL),which have exceptional physicochemical properties for their applicationin the bio-lubricants, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics industries.The construction of different heterologous pathways for the biosynthesisof the substrates and the final products was done using acombinatorial modular design. After the recombinant-cyanobacteriastrains were obtained, we tested if the enzymes of each pathwaywere expressed and finally we carried out different bioconversionassays to test if the desired products were synthesized. These bioconversionassays demonstrated that the cyanobacterial strainssuccessfully produced MBL.In summary, we have developed a cyanobacterial high-value-moleculesproduction platform with a modular-functional design that allowsa versatile, interchangeable and combinatorial construction ofthe desired cyanobacterial strain.