以色列魏茨曼科学研究所Ron Milo课题组首次实现将大肠杆菌转变为能够从二氧化碳中产生所有的生物碳。这一研究成果发表在2019年11月27日出版的国际学术期刊《细胞》上。
研究人员表示，生命世界大致分为将二氧化碳转化为生物质的自养生物和消耗有机化合物的异养生物。尽管人们对可再生能源存储和更可持续的粮食生产产生了广泛的兴趣，但迄今为止，工业上相关的异养模式生物利用二氧化碳作为唯一碳源的工程设计仍然是一个严峻的挑战。
研究人员报道了实验室时间尺度上这一转变的成就。研究人员构建并进化了大肠杆菌，以利用二氧化碳生产其所有生物质碳。降低功率和能量但不提供碳，而是通过可以通过电化学方式产生的一碳分子甲酸酯提供的。核酮糖-1,5-二磷酸羧化酶和磷酸核糖激酶与甲酸脱氢酶共表达，以通过卡尔文循环固定和还原CO2。在不断增加的有机碳限制下，在化学恒温器中进行连续数月的实验室进化后，实现了自养生长，并通过同位素标记进行了确认。
附：英文原文
Title: Conversion of Escherichia coli to Generate All Biomass Carbon from CO2
Author: Shmuel Gleizer, Roee Ben-Nissan, Yinon M. Bar-On, Niv Antonovsky, Elad Noor, Yehudit Zohar, Ghil Jona, Eyal Krieger, Melina Shamshoum, Arren Bar-Even, Ron Milo
Issue&Volume: 2019/11/27
Abstract: The living world is largely divided into autotrophs that convert CO2 into biomass and heterotrophs that consume organic compounds. In spite of widespread interest in renewable energy storage and more sustainable food production, the engineering of industrially relevant heterotrophic model organisms to use CO2 as their sole carbon source has so far remained an outstanding challenge. Here, we report the achievement of this transformation on laboratory timescales. We constructed and evolved Escherichia coli to produce all its biomass carbon from CO2. Reducing power and energy, but not carbon, are supplied via the one-carbon molecule formate, which can be produced electrochemically. Rubisco and phosphoribulokinase were co-expressed with formate dehydrogenase to enable CO2 fixation and reduction via the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle. Autotrophic growth was achieved following several months of continuous laboratory evolution in a chemostat under intensifying organic carbon limitation and confirmed via isotopic labeling.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.11.009
Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(19)31230-9