Polyphosphate kinase deletion increases laboratory productivity in cyanobacteria

Jacob Sebesta; Michael Cantrell; Eric Schaedig; Harvey J M Hou; Colleen Pastore; Katherine J Chou; Wei Xiong; Michael T Guarnieri; Jianping Yu

doi:10.3389/fpls.2024.1342496

Polyphosphate kinase deletion increases laboratory productivity in cyanobacteria

Front Plant Sci. 2024 Feb 7:15:1342496. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1342496. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Jacob Sebesta¹, Michael Cantrell¹, Eric Schaedig¹, Harvey J M Hou^{1

2}, Colleen Pastore¹, Katherine J Chou¹, Wei Xiong¹, Michael T Guarnieri¹, Jianping Yu¹

Affiliations

¹ Biosciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, United States.
² Laboratory of Forensic Analysis and Photosynthesis, Department of Physical Sciences, Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL, United States.

Abstract

Identification and manipulation of cellular energy regulation mechanisms may be a strategy to increase productivity in photosynthetic organisms. This work tests the hypothesis that polyphosphate synthesis and degradation play a role in energy management by storing or dissipating energy in the form of ATP. A polyphosphate kinase (ppk) knock-out strain unable to synthesize polyphosphate was generated in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. This mutant strain demonstrated higher ATP levels and faster growth than the wildtype strain in high-carbon conditions and had a growth defect under multiple stress conditions. In a strain that combined ppk deletion with heterologous expression of ethylene-forming enzyme, higher ethylene productivity was observed than in the wildtype background. These results support the role of polyphosphate synthesis and degradation as an energy regulation mechanism and suggest that such mechanisms may be effective targets in biocontainment design.

Keywords: biocontainment; cyanobacteria; energy regulation; ethylene; polyphosphate.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Genomic Science Program under Secure Biosystems Design Science Focus Area (SFA), IMAGINE BioSecurity: Integrative Modeling and Genome-scale Engineering for Biosystems Security, under contract number DE-AC36-08GO28308. HH is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Visiting Faculty Program.