Improved production of fatty alcohols in cyanobacteria by metabolic engineering

Background: Fatty alcohols are widely used in industrial chemicals. The biosynthetic pathways for fatty alcohols are diverse and widely existing in nature. They display a high capacity to produce fatty alcohols by the metabolic engineering of different microbe hosts. Direct recycling of carbon dioxide to fatty alcohols can be achieved by introducing a fatty alcohol-producing pathway into photosynthetic cyanobacteria. According to our precious reports, a relatively low yield of fatty alcohols was obtained in the genetically engineered cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Results: The photosynthetic production of fatty alcohols in Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 was improved through heterologously expressing fatty acyl-Coenzyme A (acyl-CoA) reductase gene maqu_2220 from the marine bacterium Marinobacter aquaeolei VT8. Maqu_2220 has been proved to catalyze both the four-electron reduction of fatty acyl-CoA or acyl-Acyl Carrier Protein (acyl-ACP) and the two-electron reduction of fatty aldehyde to fatty alcohol. The knockout of the aldehyde-deformylating oxygenase gene (sll0208) efficiently blocked the hydrocarbon accumulation and redirected the carbon flux into the fatty alcohol-producing pathway. By knocking-out both sll0208 and sll0209 (encoding an acyl-ACP reductase), the productivity of fatty alcohols was further increased to 2.87 mg/g dry weight. Conclusions: The highest yield of fatty alcohols was achieved in cyanobacteria by expressing the prokaryotic fatty acyl-CoA reductase Maqu_2220 and knocking-out the two key genes (sll0208 and sll0209) that are involved in the alka(e)ne biosynthesis pathway. Maqu_2220 was demonstrated as a robust enzyme for producing fatty alcohols in cyanobacteria. The production of fatty alcohols could be significantly increased by blocking the hydrocarbon biosynthesis pathway.