02/01/2013

Improving Cyanobacterial Synthesis of Alkanes

Summary

Cyanobacteria are important photoautotrophic organisms that can capture carbon dioxide and convert it into a suite of organic compounds such as high-density liquid fuels. Using synchrotron radiation-based Fourier transform infrared (SR-FTIR) spectromicroscopy as a high-throughput imaging method, researchers tracked metabolic phenotypes of Synechocystis 6803, which was engineered for enhanced production of alkanes and free fatty acids. Multivariate SR-FTIR data analysis revealed biochemical shifts in the engineered cells. These results demonstrate the applicability of
SR-FTIR spectromicroscopy for rapid metabolic screening and phenotyping of live individual cells. The research was conducted using resources at the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

References

Hu, P., et al. 2013. “Metabolic Phenotyping of the Cyanobacterium Synechocystis 6803 Engineered for Production of Alkanes and Free Fatty Acids,”
Applied Energy 102, 850–59. (Reference link)