The production of monomer compounds for synthesizing plastics has to date been largely restricted to petroleum-based chemical industry and sugar-based microbial fermentation, limiting its sustainability and economical feasibility. Cyanobacteria have, however, become attractive microbial factories to produce renewable fuels and chemicals directly from sunlight and CO2. To explore the feasibility of photosynthetic production of 3-hydroxybutyrate (3HB), a building-block monomer for synthesizing the biodegradable plastics polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) and also fine chemicals, synthetic metabolic pathways have been constructed, characterized and optimized in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Fine-tuning of the gene expression levels proved critical to improving the 3HB production. Present strains of engineered Synechocystis are able to produce and readily secrete 3HB at up to 85 mg/L/day using CO2 and light as the sole carbon and energy sources, respectively. Now, we continue to employ analogous strategies for the production of useful monomer compounds and will report on our latest progress in those pathways.

Photosynthetic conversion of CO<sub>2</sub> to building-blocks for renewable plastics

247th National Meeting (2014)

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Photosynthetic conversion of CO2 to building-blocks for renewable plastics

Photosynthetic conversion of CO₂ to building-blocks for renewable plastics