Methods and compositions for ethanol producing cyanobacteria
AssigneeUniversity of Hawaii
InventorsPengcheng Patrick Fu, Jason Dexter
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Abstract
The present invention relates to methods and systems for the production of ethanol by cyanobacteria. More specifically, the methods can be used to produce ethanol using genetically engineered light responsive cyanobacteria.
Claims42
A nucleic acid construct comprising:
- a light responsive promoter, a sequence encoding a pyruvate decarboxylase (pdc) enzyme, and a sequence encoding an alcohol dehydrogenase (adh) enzyme.
A genetically engineered cyanobacterium comprising a construct comprising nucleic acid sequences encoding pyruvate decarboxylase (pdc) and alcohol dehydrogenase (adh) enzymes, wherein the cyanobacterium is capable of producing ethanol in recoverable quantities greater than about 10 mM ethanol after a 5 day fermentation.
The cyanobacterium of 28, wherein the Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 is wild type or a NDH-2(−) mutant Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 strain.
A method of producing ethanol, comprising:
- culturing in a culture medium cyanobacteria, the cyanobacteria containing a construct comprising DNA fragments encoding pdc and adh enzymes obtained from the Zymomonas mobilis pL0I295 plasmid;
- and accumulating ethanol in the culture medium in an amount greater than about 10 mM ethanol after a 5 day fermentation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.