Conversion of Escherichia coli to Generate All Biomass Carbon from CO2

Shmuel Gleizer, Roee Ben-Nissan, Yinon M. Bar-On, Niv Antonovsky, Elad Noor, Yehudit Zohar, Ghil Jona, Eyal Krieger, Melina Shamshoum, Arren Bar-Even, Ron Milo*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

357 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The living world is largely divided into autotrophs that convert CO2 into biomass and heterotrophs that consume organic compounds. In spite of widespread interest in renewable energy storage and more sustainable food production, the engineering of industrially relevant heterotrophic model organisms to use CO2 as their sole carbon source has so far remained an outstanding challenge. Here, we report the achievement of this transformation on laboratory timescales. We constructed and evolved Escherichia coli to produce all its biomass carbon from CO2. Reducing power and energy, but not carbon, are supplied via the one-carbon molecule formate, which can be produced electrochemically. Rubisco and phosphoribulokinase were co-expressed with formate dehydrogenase to enable CO2 fixation and reduction via the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle. Autotrophic growth was achieved following several months of continuous laboratory evolution in a chemostat under intensifying organic carbon limitation and confirmed via isotopic labeling.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1255-1263
Number of pages9
JournalCell
Volume179
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Nov 2019

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council, European Union (project NOVCARBFIX 646827); Israel Science Foundation 740/16; Beck-Canadian Center for Alternative Energy Research; Dana and Yossie Hollander, USA; Helmsley Charitable Foundation, USA; Larson Charitable Foundation, USA; Estate of David Arthur Barton, UK; Anthony Stalbow Charitable Trust, Canada; and Stella Gelerman, Canada. R.M. is the Charles and Louise Gartner Professional Chair. Y.M.B.-O. is an Azrieli fellow. We thank Tomer Shlomi, Elina Aizenshtein, Dzmitry Mukha, Avi Rutenberg, Ilana Rogachev, Zipora Marx, Dan Davidi, Avi Flamholz, Naama Barkai, Merav Hagag, Alon Barshap, Dolev Ezra, Margarita Gortikov, Yafit Sugas, Keren Frisch, Ofir Shechter, Ifat Goldstein, Meital Ostikar, Ron Sender, Yuval Kush-maro, Natalie Page, Tali Wiesel, Gal Ofir, Sergey Malitski, Elad Herz, Elad Itzhaki, Noam Prywes, Ahuva Cooperstein, Oren Yishai, Tami Hayun, Dikla Levi, and Nilit Haroeh. Author contribution - S.G., A.B.-E., N.A., E.N., and R.M. designed the project. E.N. and N.A. developed the computational framework. S.G., R.B.-N., Y.Z., G.J., E.K., and M.S. performed the experiments. S.G., R.B.-N., and Y.M.B.-O. performed the data analysis. S.G., R.B.-N., Y.M.B.-O., and R.M. wrote the paper.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology

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