Tapping cyanobacteria for sugar: increasing photosynthetic potential and engineering solar-driven microbial consortia for bioproduction

The Ducat lab is interested in understanding cyanobacterial physiology and in engineering them for solar-driven bioproduction. One interest is a cyanobacterial strain we originally engineered to secrete sucrose as an alternative carbohydrate feedstock crop (e.g., substitute for corn/sugarcane). Somewhat counterintuitively, we find cyanobacterial strains that secrete the majority of their fixed carbon as simple sugars also exhibit improved efficiency of sunlight-to-biomass conversion as a result: which has implications for the regulation of photosynthetic energetic balance. Efforts to utilize these strains as a “module” for rational design of synthetic microbial consortia (autotroph/heterotroph) that are “solar powered” will also be summarized.