Dehazing redox homeostasis to foster purple bacteria biotechnology

Abstract

Purple non-sulfur bacteria (PNSB) show great potential for environmental and industrial biotechnology, producing microbial protein, biohydrogen, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), pigments, etc. When grown photoheterotrophically, the carbon source is typically more reduced than the PNSB biomass, which leads to a redox imbalance. To mitigate the excess of electrons, PNSB can exhibit several 'electron sinking' strategies, such as CO₂ fixation, N₂ fixation, and H₂ and PHA production. The lack of a comprehensive (over)view of these redox strategies is hindering the implementation of PNSB for biotechnology applications. This review aims to present the state of the art of redox homeostasis in phototrophically grown PNSB, presenting known and theoretically expected strategies, and discussing them from stoichiometric, thermodynamic, metabolic, and economic points of view.

Keywords: alternative protein; hydrogen economy; nitrogen fixation; polyhydroxybutyrate; purple phototrophic bacteria; resource recovery.