New Constructs für ethanol production via Cyanobacteriea

Alternative to fossil fuels must be developed due to several already known reasons. Bioethanol can be attractive an energy concept. Bioethanol gasoline hybrid fuel can be used by most internal combustion engines. First and second Generation bioethanol is already available. - here agricultural crops ore residues are utilized. There are controversial discussions about these bioethanol production methods. – the food versus fuel debate, cost and energy efficiency. Alternative advanced bioethanol production must be established with competitive production costs. Photosynthetic prokaroytes like cyanobacteria are attractive organismes for this prurpose - These prokaroytes are fast grwing organisms and utilize solar energy and CO2. But thes prokaryotes must be genetically manipulated for Ethanol production. In this study transformation was performed using homologues recombination to introduce pyruvate decarboxylase (pdC) and alcohol dehydrogenase B (adhB) genes from Zymononas mobilis into the photosynthetic prokaryote Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7042 genome. These cyanobacteria grow in fresh water and sea water and even in waste water. Bothe genes were expressed under the strong constitutive promoter of psbA1 gene (encoding photosystem II protein D1) Various cloning strategies were done. Each construct was transformed successfully in Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 genome and the potential bioethanol production was determined with HPLC. Only one construct produces bioethanol at detectable level. Diverse reactors and scale up steps were done to increase the bioethanol production. Anyhow further cloning strategies must be implemented to improve the production rate to achieve an effective bioethanol production from Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942.