Cofactor engineering in cyanobacteria to overcome imbalance between NADPH and NADH: A mini review

Abstract

Cyanobacteria can produce useful renewable fuels and high-value chemicals using sunlight and atmospheric carbon dioxide by photosynthesis. Genetic manipulation has increased the variety of chemicals that cyanobacteria can produce. However, their uniquely abundant NADPH-pool, in other words insufficient supply of NADH, tends to limit their production yields in case of utilizing NADH-dependent enzyme, which is quite common in heterotrophic microbes. To overcome this cofactor imbalance and enhance cyanobacterial fuel and chemical production, various approaches for cofactor engineering have been employed. In this review, we focus on three approaches: (1) utilization of NADPH-dependent enzymes, (2) increasing NADH production, and (3) changing cofactor specificity of NADH-dependent enzymes from NADH to NADPH.