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Internal Illumination to Overcome the Cell Density Limitation in the Scale‐up of Whole‐Cell Photobiocatalysis
Author(s) -
Hobisch Markus,
Spasic Jelena,
MalihanYap Lenny,
Barone Giovanni Davide,
Castiglione Kathrin,
Tamagnini Paula,
Kara Selin,
Kourist Robert
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
chemsuschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.412
H-Index - 157
eISSN - 1864-564X
pISSN - 1864-5631
DOI - 10.1002/cssc.202100832
Subject(s) - photobioreactor , yield (engineering) , photosynthesis , chemistry , scale up , biotransformation , bioreactor , materials science , biological system , biofuel , physics , biochemistry , biology , enzyme , organic chemistry , ecology , classical mechanics , metallurgy
Cyanobacteria have the capacity to use photosynthesis to fuel their metabolism, which makes them highly promising production systems for the sustainable production of chemicals. Yet, their dependency on visible light limits the cell‐density, which is a challenge for the scale‐up. Here, it was shown with the example of a light‐dependent biotransformation that internal illumination in a bubble column reactor equipped with wireless light emitters (WLEs) could overcome this limitation. Cells of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 expressing the gene of the ene‐reductase YqjM were used for the reduction of 2‐methylmaleimide to ( R )‐2‐methylsuccinimide with high optical purity (>99 % ee ). Compared to external source of light, illumination by floating wireless light emitters allowed a more than two‐fold rate increase. Under optimized conditions, product formation rates up to 3.7 m m h −1 and specific activities of up to 65.5 U g DCW −1 were obtained, allowing the reduction of 40 m m 2‐methylmaleimide with 650 mg isolated enantiopure product (73 % yield). The results demonstrate the principle of internal illumination as a means to overcome the intrinsic cell density limitation of cyanobacterial biotransformations, obtaining high reaction rates in a scalable photobioreactor.