UC Berkeley

The work seeks to raise awareness of a fundamental problem that impacts the renewable generation of fuels and chemicals via (photo)synthetic biology. At issue is regulation of the endogenous cellular carbon partitioning between different biosynthetic pathways, over which the living cell exerts stringent control. The regulation of carbon partitioning in photosynthesis is not understood. In plants, microalgae and cyanobacteria, methods need be devised to alter photosynthetic carbon partitioning between the sugar, terpenoid, and fatty acid biosynthetic pathways, to lower the prevalence of sugar biosynthesis and correspondingly upregulate terpenoid and fatty acid hydrocarbons production in the cell. Insight from unusual but naturally occurring carbon-partitioning processes can help in the design of blueprints for improved photosynthetic fuels and chemicals production.