Recent Advances in Developing Artificial Autotrophic Microorganism for Reinforcing CO2 Fixation

Abstract

With the goal of achieving carbon sequestration, emission reduction and cleaner production, biological methods have been employed to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into fuels and chemicals. However, natural autotrophic organisms are not suitable cell factories due to their poor carbon fixation efficiency and poor growth rate. Heterotrophic microorganisms are promising candidates, since they have been proven to be efficient biofuel and chemical production chassis. This review first briefly summarizes six naturally occurring CO2 fixation pathways, and then focuses on recent advances in artificially designing efficient CO2 fixation pathways. Moreover, this review discusses the transformation of heterotrophic microorganisms into hemiautotrophic microorganisms and delves further into fully autotrophic microorganisms (artificial autotrophy) by use of synthetic biological tools and strategies. Rapid developments in artificial autotrophy have laid a solid foundation for the development of efficient carbon fixation cell factories. Finally, this review highlights future directions toward large-scale applications. Artificial autotrophic microbial cell factories need further improvements in terms of CO2 fixation pathways, reducing power supply, compartmentalization and host selection.

Integrating greenhouse gas capture and C1 biotechnology: a key challenge for circular economy

“…Fungi and bacteria can be used in these processes (Menon et al, 2019). However, most interestingly, a number of researches are currently focussed on the creation of new synthetic organisms able to capture CO 2 using HCOOH or light, opening new frontiers in this field (Woo, 2017;Franc ßois et al, 2020;Liang et al, 2020;Satanowski and Bar-Even, 2020;Satanowski et al, 2020). Rewiring Escherichia coli for CO 2 fixation to convert it into sugar may enable diverse biotechnological applications (Antonovsky et al, 2017;Flamholz et al, 2020).…”

Effect of Humin and Chemical Factors on CO2-Fixing Acetogenesis and Methanogenesis

“…While various technologies have been being studied intensively to capture or utilize CO 2 to reduce the emissions [ 4 ], it is also important to understand the carbon cycle on earth, where biological CO 2 fixation by autotrophic microorganisms plays an important role. In nature, autotrophic microorganisms utilize light or inorganic compounds as an energy source to reduce CO 2 into organic compounds via six natural carbon fixation pathways including the Calvin–Benson–Bassham cycle, the reductive citric acid cycle, the 3-hydroxypropionate bicycle, the 3-hydroxypropionate/4-hydroxybutyrate cycle, dicarboxylate/4-hydroxybutyrate cycle, and the reductive acetyl-CoA pathway (Wood–Ljungdahl pathway) [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. In these CO 2 -fixation pathways, the Wood–Ljungdahl pathway has high energy efficiency due to the consumption of only one mole of ATP to fix one mole of CO 2 [ 7 ], which has garnered more interest for many researchers.…”

Non-natural Aldol Reactions Enable the Design and Construction of Novel One-Carbon Assimilation Pathways in vitro

“…Growing concerns over global fossil-resources and food shortages have motivated the development of sustainable commodity biomanufacturing from alternative resources ( Clomburg et al, 2017 ). Over the past decade, advances in the bioconversion of non-food, low-cost, and abundant one-carbon compounds such as methanol, formate, and CO 2 using native or synthetic methylotrophs highlighted a potentially green and economical alternative to current sugar-based biomanufacturing ( Liang et al, 2020 ; Mao et al, 2020 ; Nguyen and Lee, 2020 ). Notably, electron-enriched methanol (CH 4 O) is expected to support more economical biosynthesis of chemicals with higher theoretical carbon-molar yields than sugars.…”