FURI | Spring 2023

Overexpression of Cyanobacterial Hydrogenase to Increase Biomass Productivity under Light-Limited Conditions

With rising concerns about climate change and the scarcity of fossil fuels, employing sustainable methods to generate carbon-based compounds is a must. One way of achieving this goal is through cyanobacteria. The high photosynthetic efficiency of these prokaryotes makes them suitable biorefineries for sustainable production. One limitation factor of photosynthetic efficiency is cyanobacteria self-shading. Enabling cyanobacteria to overexpress hydrogenase by replacing the native promoter with stronger ones will allow the usage of hydrogen as an energy source and overcome this limitation. Towards this, multiple recombinant plasmids have been constructed and the construction of the remaining plasmids is ongoing.