Reprogramming bacterial protein organelles as a new nanoreactor for hydrogen production
tianpei Li a b c d, Qiuyao jiang a, Jiafeng Huang a e, Catherine Aitchison f, Fang Huang a, Mengru Yang a, Gregory Dykes a, Reiner Sebastian Sprick f, Qiang Wang d g, Andrew Cooper f, Lu-Ning Liu a h
a University of Liverpool, Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
b Chinese Academy of Sciences, Key Laboratory of Algal Biology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Wuhan, Wuhan, China
c University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
d Henan University, State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Adaptation and Improvement, School of Life Sciences, Kaifeng, Kaifeng, China
e Central South University, School of Life Sciences, Changsha, China, Changsha, China
f University of Liverpool, Materials Innovation Factory and Department of Chemistry, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
g Innovation Academy for Seed Design, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, China
h Ocean University of China, College of Marine Life Sciences, and Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System, Qingdao, China
Proceedings of International Online Conference on Bio-hybrid Approaches to Solar Energy Conversion (Biohybrid)
Online, Spain, 2020 October 27th - 29th
Organizers: Jenny Zhang, Vincent Friebe and Lars Jeuken
Contributed talk, tianpei Li, presentation 016
Publication date: 8th October 2020

Compartmentalization is a ubiquitous building principle in cells, which permits segregation of biological elements and reactions. The carboxysome is a specialized bacterial organelle that encapsulates enzymes into a virus-like protein shell and plays essential roles in photosynthetic carbon fixation[1-4].The naturally designed architecture, semi-permeability, and catalytic improvement of carboxysomes have inspired rational design and engineering of new nanomaterials to incorporate desired enzymes into the protein shell for enhanced catalytic performance[5-6]. Here, we build large, intact carboxysome shells (over 90 nm in diameter) in the industrial microorganism Escherichia coli by expressing a set of carboxysome protein-encoding genes. We develop strategies for enzyme activation, shell self-assembly, and cargo encapsulation to construct a robust nanoreactor that incorporates catalytically active [FeFe]-hydrogenases and functional partners within the empty shell for the production of hydrogen. We show that shell encapsulation and the internal microenvironment of the new catalyst facilitate hydrogen production of the encapsulated oxygen-sensitive hydrogenases(Li et al, nature communications, accepted). The study provides insights into the assembly and formation of carboxysomes and paves the way for engineering carboxysome shell-based nanoreactors to recruit specific enzymes for diverse catalytic reactions.

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