Abstract
High and changing salt concentrations represent major abiotic factors limiting the growth of microorganisms. During their long evolution, cyanobacteria have adapted to aquatic habitats with ...various salt concentrations. High salt concentrations in the medium challenge the cell with reduced water availability and high contents of inorganic ions. The basic mechanism of salt acclimation involves the active extrusion of toxic inorganic ions and the accumulation of compatible solutes, including sucrose, trehalose, glucosylglycerol, and glycine betaine. The kinetics of these physiological processes has been exceptionally well studied in the model Synechocystis 6803, leading to the definition of five subsequent phases in reaching a new salt acclimation steady state. Recent ‘-omics’ technologies using the advanced model Synechocystis 6803 have revealed a comprehensive picture of the dynamic process of salt acclimation involving the differential expression of hundreds of genes. However, the mechanisms involved in sensing specific salt stress signals are not well resolved. In the future, analysis of cyanobacterial salt acclimation will be directed toward defining the functions of the many unknown proteins upregulated in salt-stressed cells, identifying specific salt-sensing mechanisms, using salt-resistant strains of cyanobacteria for the production of bioenergy, and applying cyanobacterial stress genes to improve the salt tolerance of sensitive organisms.
•Photorespiration.•Metabolite repair pathway.•Energy requirements.•Improvement strategies.
The photorespiratory pathway, in short photorespiration, is an essential metabolite repair pathway that ...allows the photosynthetic CO2 fixation of plants to occur in the presence of oxygen. It is necessary because oxygen is a competing substrate of the CO2-fixing enzyme ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase, forming 2-phosphoglycolate that negatively interferes with photosynthesis. Photorespiration very efficiently recycles 2-phosphoglycolate into 3-phosphoglycerate, which re-enters the Calvin–Benson cycle to drive sustainable photosynthesis. Photorespiration however requires extra energy and re-oxidises one quarter of the 2-phosphoglycolate carbon to CO2, lowering potential maximum rates of photosynthesis in most plants including food and energy crops. This review discusses natural and artificial strategies to reduce the undesired impact of air oxygen on photosynthesis and in turn plant growth.
Compatible solutes are a functional group of small, highly soluble organic molecules that demonstrate compatibility in high amounts with cellular metabolism. The accumulation of compatible solutes is ...often observed during the acclimation of organisms to adverse environmental conditions, particularly to salt and drought stress. Among cyanobacteria, sucrose, trehalose, glucosylglycerol and glycine betaine are used as major compatible solutes. Interestingly, a close correlation has been discovered between the final salt tolerance limit and the primary compatible solute in these organisms. In addition to the dominant compatible solutes, many strains accumulate mixtures of these compounds, including minor compounds such as glucosylglycerate or proline as secondary or tertiary solutes. In particular, the accumulation of sucrose and trehalose results in an increase in tolerance to general stresses such as desiccation and high temperatures. During recent years, the biochemical and molecular basis of compatible solute accumulation has been characterized using cyanobacterial model strains that comprise different salt tolerance groups. Based on these data, the distribution of genes involved in compatible solute synthesis among sequenced cyanobacterial genomes is reviewed, and thereby, the major compatible solutes and potential salt tolerance of these strains can be predicted. Knowledge regarding cyanobacterial salt tolerance is not only useful to characterize strain-specific adaptations to ecological niches, but it can also be used to generate cells with increased tolerance to adverse environmental conditions for biotechnological purposes.
Photorespiratory metabolism allows plants to thrive in a high-oxygen containing environment. This metabolic pathway recycles phosphoglycolate, a toxic compound, back to phosphoglycerate, when oxygen ...substitutes for carbon dioxide in the first reaction of photosynthetic carbon fixation. The recovery of phosphoglycerate is accompanied by considerable carbon and energy losses, making photorespiration a prime target for crop improvement. The genomics era has allowed the precise functional analysis of individual reaction steps of the photorespiratory cycle, and more links integrating photorespiration with cellular metabolism as a whole are becoming apparent. Here we review the evolutionary origins of photorespiration as well as new insights into the interaction with other metabolic processes such as nitrogen assimilation and mitochondrial respiration.
Cyanobacteria are the only prokaryotes capable of performing oxygenic photosynthesis. Many cyanobacterial strains can live in different trophic modes, ranging from photoautotrophic and heterotrophic ...to mixotrophic growth. However, the regulatory mechanisms allowing a flexible switch between these lifestyles are poorly understood. As anabolic fixation of CO 2 in the Calvin-Benson-Bassham (CBB) cycle and catabolic sugar-degradation pathways share intermediates and enzymatic capacity, a tight regulatory network is required to enable simultaneous opposed metabolic fluxes. The Entner-Doudoroff (ED) pathway was recently predicted as one glycolytic route, which cooperates with other pathways in glycogen breakdown. Despite low carbon flux through the ED pathway, metabolite analyses of mutants deficient in the ED pathway revealed a distinct phenotype pointing at a strong regulatory impact of this route. The small Cp12 protein downregulates the CBB cycle in darkness by inhibiting phosphoribulokinase and glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase. New results of metabolomic and redox level analyses on strains with Cp12 variants extend the known role of Cp12 regulation towards the acclimation to external glucose supply under diurnal conditions as well as to fluctuations in CO 2 levels in the light. Moreover, carbon and nitrogen metabolism are closely linked to maintain an essential C/N homeostasis. The small protein PirC was shown to be an important regulator of phosphoglycerate mutase, which identified this enzyme as central branching point for carbon allocation from CBB cycle towards lower glycolysis. Altered metabolite levels in the mutant Δ pirC during nitrogen starvation experiments confirm this regulatory mechanism. The elucidation of novel mechanisms regulating carbon allocation at crucial metabolic branching points could identify ways for targeted redirection of carbon flow towards desired compounds, and thus help to further establish cyanobacteria as green cell factories for biotechnological applications with concurrent utilization of sunlight and CO 2 .
Cyanobacteria are prokaryotes that can assimilate inorganic carbon
via
oxygenic photosynthesis, which results in the formation of organic compounds essentially from CO
2
, water, and light. ...Increasing concerns regarding the increase in atmospheric CO
2
due to fossil energy usage fueled the idea of a photosynthesis-driven and CO
2
-neutral, i.e., cyanobacteria-based biotechnology. The ability of various cyanobacteria to tolerate high and/or fluctuating salinities attenuates the requirement of freshwater for their cultivation, which makes these organisms even more interesting regarding a sustainable utilization of natural resources. However, those applications require a detailed knowledge of the processes involved in salt acclimation. Here, we review the current state of our knowledge on the regulation of compatible solute accumulation in cyanobacteria. The model organism
Synechocystis
sp. PCC 6803 responds to increasing salinities mainly by the accumulation of glucosylglycerol (GG) and sucrose. After exposure toward increased salt concentrations, the accumulation of the main compatible solute GG is achieved by
de novo
synthesis. The key target of regulation is the enzyme GG-phosphate synthase (GgpS) and involves transcriptional, posttranscriptional, and biochemical mechanisms. Recently, the GG-degrading enzyme GG hydrolase A (GghA) was identified, which is particularly important for GG degradation during exposure to decreasing salinities. The inversely ion-regulated activities of GgpS and GghA could represent the main model for effectively tuning GG steady state levels according to external salinities. Similar to GG, the intracellular amount of sucrose is also salt-regulated and seems to be determined by the balance of sucrose synthesis
via
sucrose-phosphate synthase (Sps) and its degradation
via
invertase (Inv). In addition to their role as stress protectants, both compatible solutes also represent promising targets for biotechnology. Hence, the increasing knowledge on the regulation of compatible solute accumulation not only improves our understanding of the stress physiology of cyanobacteria but will also support their future biotechnological applications.
► Photorespiration is not a wasteful process but essential to all oxygenic autotrophs. ► Photorespiratory metabolism allows Rubisco to drive the global carbon cycle. ► Its origin dates back to the ...invention of oxygenic photosynthesis in cyanobacteria. ► Plant photorespiration comprises enzymes of cyanobacterial and proteobacterial origin. ► Photorespiration is multiply connected to central metabolism.
Photorespiration is a Janus-headed metabolic process: it makes oxygenic photosynthesis possible by scavenging its major toxic by-product, 2-phosphoglycolate, but also leads to high losses of freshly assimilated CO2 from most land plants. Photorespiration has been often classified as a wasteful process but is now increasingly appreciated as a key ancillary component of photosynthesis and therefore the global carbon cycle. As such, the photorespiratory cycle is one of the major highways for the flow of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere. Recent research revealed that this important pathway originated as a partner of oxygenic photosynthesis billions of years ago and is multiply linked to other pathways of central metabolism of contemporary land plants.
The long evolutionary history and photo-autotrophic lifestyle of cyanobacteria has allowed them to colonize almost all photic habitats on Earth, including environments with high or fluctuating ...salinity. Their basal salt acclimation strategy includes two principal reactions, the active export of ions and the accumulation of compatible solutes. Cyanobacterial salt acclimation has been characterized in much detail using selected model cyanobacteria, but their salt sensing and regulatory mechanisms are less well understood. Here, we briefly review recent advances in the identification of salt acclimation processes and the essential genes/proteins involved in acclimation to high salt. This knowledge is of increasing importance because the necessary mass cultivation of cyanobacteria for future use in biotechnology will be performed in sea water. In addition, cyanobacterial salt resistance genes also can be applied to improve the salt tolerance of salt sensitive organisms, such as crop plants.
Summary
Cyanobacteria are the only prokaryotes that perform plant‐like oxygenic photosynthesis. They evolved an inorganic carbon‐concentrating mechanism to adapt to low CO2 conditions.
Quantitative ...phosphoproteomics was applied to analyze regulatory features during the acclimation to low CO2 conditions in the model cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803.
Overall, more than 2500 proteins were quantified, equivalent to c. 70% of the Synechocystis theoretical proteome. Proteins with changing abundances correlated largely with mRNA expression levels. Functional annotation of the noncorrelating proteins revealed an enrichment of key metabolic processes fundamental for maintaining cellular homeostasis. Furthermore, 105 phosphoproteins harboring over 200 site‐specific phosphorylation events were identified. Subunits of the bicarbonate transporter BCT1 and the redox switch protein CP12 were among phosphoproteins with reduced phosphorylation levels at lower CO2, whereas the serine/threonine protein kinase SpkC revealed increased phosphorylation levels. The corresponding ΔspkC mutant was characterized and showed decreased ability to acclimate to low CO2 conditions. Possible phosphorylation targets of SpkC including a BCT1 subunit were identified by phosphoproteomics.
Collectively, our study highlights the importance of posttranscriptional regulation of protein abundances as well as posttranslational regulation by protein phosphorylation for the successful acclimation towards low CO2 conditions in Synechocystis and possibly among cyanobacteria.
Microcystins are cyanobacterial toxins that represent a serious threat to drinking water and recreational lakes worldwide. Here, we show that microcystin fulfils an important function within cells of ...its natural producer Microcystis. The microcystin deficient mutant ΔmcyB showed significant changes in the accumulation of proteins, including several enzymes of the Calvin cycle, phycobiliproteins and two NADPH-dependent reductases. We have discovered that microcystin binds to a number of these proteins in vivo and that the binding is strongly enhanced under high light and oxidative stress conditions. The nature of this binding was studied using extracts of a microcystin-deficient mutant in vitro. The data obtained provided clear evidence for a covalent interaction of the toxin with cysteine residues of proteins. A detailed investigation of one of the binding partners, the large subunit of RubisCO showed a lower susceptibility to proteases in the presence of microcystin in the wild type. Finally, the mutant defective in microcystin production exhibited a clearly increased sensitivity under high light conditions and after hydrogen peroxide treatment. Taken together, our data suggest a protein-modulating role for microcystin within the producing cell, which represents a new addition to the catalogue of functions that have been discussed for microbial secondary metabolites.
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