Institut für Systembiotechnologie

CyanoFlux - Biotechnology from light and carbon dioxide

Elucidation of metabolic fluxes in photosynthetic cyanobacteria

Green biotechnology is a promising research area of the 21st century. Against the background of the global scarcity of resources, the research of photosynthetic microorganisms promises a most attractive production: value-added chemicals, materials and drugs based only on sunlight and carbon dioxide. It could hardly be more sustainable. An important step towards the creation of tailor-made, light-driven mini-factories is to better understand their metabolism in order to find the best targets for the improvement of the naturally weak production performance. In this regard, the German Research Foundation (DFG) supports a research project to investigate the central carbon metabolism of the photosynthetic model strain Synechocystis on the level of metabolic fluxes. In cooperation with the research group of Kirstin Gutekunst (Kiel University), we will explore the contribution of individual pathways in different growth regimes. As associate partners, the teams of Jean-Charles Portais (University of Toulouse) and Hiroshi Shimizu (University of Osaka, Japan) will support the project in the area of metabolome analysis and systems biology modeling.


Publications

Schulze D, Kohlstedt M, Becker J, Cahoreau E, Peyriga L, Makowka A, Hildebrand S, Gutekunst K, Portais JC, Wittmann C (2022) GC/MS-based 13C metabolic flux analysis resolves the parallel and cyclic photomixotrophic metabolism of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 and selected deletion mutants including the Entner-Doudoroff and phosphoketolase pathways. Microb. Cell Fact. 21:69. Link.

Makowka, A, Nichelmann, L, Schulze, D, Spengler, K, Wittmann, C, Forchhammer, K, Gutekunst, K (2020) Glycolytic shunts replenish the Calvin-Benson cycle as anaplerotic reactions in cyanobacteria. Mol. Plant. 13:471-482. Link.


Coordinators

Christoph Wittmann, Kirstin Gutekunst


Partners