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Cofactor engineering in cyanobacteria to overcome imbalance between NADPH and NADH: A mini review

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Abstract

Cyanobacteria can produce useful renewable fuels and high-value chemicals using sunlight and atmospheric carbon dioxide by photosynthesis. Genetic manipulation has increased the variety of chemicals that cyanobacteria can produce. However, their uniquely abundant NADPH-pool, in other words insufficient supply of NADH, tends to limit their production yields in case of utilizing NADH-dependent enzyme, which is quite common in heterotrophic microbes. To overcome this cofactor imbalance and enhance cyanobacterial fuel and chemical production, various approaches for cofactor engineering have been employed. In this review, we focus on three approaches: (1) utilization of NADPH-dependent enzymes, (2) increasing NADH production, and (3) changing cofactor specificity of NADH-dependent enzymes from NADH to NADPH.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Marine Biotechnology Program (Marine BioMaterials Research Center) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Korea, and BK21+ program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. This work was also conducted under the framework of Research and Development Program of the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) (B4-2474-02).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Gyeongbuk, 790-784, Korea

    Jongmoon Park & Yunnam Choi

  2. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Gyeongbuk, 790-784, Korea

    Jongmoon Park

  3. Division of Advanced Nuclear Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Gyeongbuk, 790-784, Korea

    Jongmoon Park

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  1. Jongmoon Park
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  2. Yunnam Choi
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Correspondence to Yunnam Choi.

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Park, J., Choi, Y. Cofactor engineering in cyanobacteria to overcome imbalance between NADPH and NADH: A mini review. Front. Chem. Sci. Eng. 11, 66–71 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-016-1591-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-016-1591-1

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