05/02/2015
Regulation of Lipid Accumulation in a Photosynthetic Bacterium
The Science
Lipids serve important functions in living systems, either as structural components of membranes or as a form of carbon storage. Understanding the mechanisms of lipid accumulation in microorganisms is important for providing insight into the assembly of biological membranes and additionally has important applications in the production of renewable fuels and chemicals. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) in collaboration with DOE’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) have investigated the ability of Rhodobacter sphaeroides to increase membrane production at low O2 tensions in order to house its photosynthetic apparatus. They found that this bacterium has a mechanism to increase lipid content in response to decreased O2 tension and identified a specific transcription factor necessary for this response.
The Impact
This finding is significant because it identifies a transcriptional regulatory pathway that can increase microbial lipid content and has applications for increasing biofuel production.
BER Program Manager
Shing Kwok
U.S. Department of Energy, Biological and Environmental Research (SC-33)
Biological Systems Science Division
[email protected]
References
Lemmer, K. C., A. C. Dohnalkova, D. R. Noguera, and T. J. Donohue. 2015. “Oxygen Dependent Regulation of Bacterial Lipid Production,” Journal of Bacteriology 197(9), 1649-58. DOI:10.1128/JB.02510-14.