Genetic engineering for biohydrogen production from microalgae

Jiaqi Zhang; Dongsheng Xue; Chongju Wang; Donglai Fang; Liping Cao; Chunjie Gong

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107255

Genetic engineering for biohydrogen production from microalgae

iScience. 2023 Jul 3;26(8):107255. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107255. eCollection 2023 Aug 18.

Authors

Jiaqi Zhang¹, Dongsheng Xue¹, Chongju Wang¹, Donglai Fang¹, Liping Cao¹, Chunjie Gong¹

Affiliation

¹ Cooperative Innovation Center of Industrial Fermentation (Ministry of Education & Hubei Province), Key Laboratory of Fermentation Engineering (Ministry of Education), National "111" Center for Cellular Regulation and Molecular Pharmaceutics, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan 430068, P.R.China.

Abstract

The development of biohydrogen as an alternative energy source has had great economic and environmental benefits. Hydrogen production from microalgae is considered a clean and sustainable energy production method that can both alleviate fuel shortages and recycle waste. Although algal hydrogen production has low energy consumption and requires only simple pretreatment, it has not been commercialized because of low product yields. To increase microalgal biohydrogen production several technologies have been developed, although they struggle with the oxygen sensitivity of the hydrogenases responsible for hydrogen production and the complexity of the metabolic network. In this review, several genetic and metabolic engineering studies on enhancing microalgal biohydrogen production are discussed, and the economic feasibility and future direction of microalgal biohydrogen commercialization are also proposed.

Keywords: Biochemistry; Ecological biochemistry; Techniques in genetics.

Publication types

Review