The contract is with Masako KANNO, an employee of Asahi Kasei and visiting researcher to Professor Atsumi SHOTA at UCLA Davis who have engineered Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 to improve glucose utilization, enhance CO2 fixation and increase chemical production. After modifications in glycolytic pathways and the Calvin Benson cycle to increase carbon flux and redirect it towards carbon fixation, the engineered strain used both CO2 and glucose, and produced 12.6 g l−1 of 2,3-butanediol with a rate of 1.1 g l−1 d−1 under continuous light conditions. Removal of native regulation enabled carbon fixation and 2,3-butanediol production also in the absence of light.

Nature Comm. doi:10.1038/ncomms14724