Direct Photosynthetic Production of Lysine in the Cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002

Lysine is an essential amino acid that is commonly used agriculturally as an animal feed supplement; globally, over a million metric tons are produced annually by cane and beet sugar fermentation using Corynebacterium glutamicum. In comparison, direct photosynthetic production of lysine by cyanobacteria would not require food crop inputs or arable land. It is also an attractive commodity chemical to produce photosynthetically, as lysine has one of the highest relative product values per photon consumed. Here, we demonstrate that the fast growing marine cyanobacterium, Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002, can be metabolically engineered to overproduce lysine. Strategies for optimizing lysine production using fine control of enzyme production, combinatorial cloning methods and biological lysine reporters will also be discussed.