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L-Cys-Assisted Conversion of H2/CO2 to Biochemicals Using Clostridium ljungdahlii

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Abstract

Carbon fixation and conversion based on Clostridium ljungdahlii have great potential for the sustainable production of biochemicals (i.e., 2,3-butanediol, acetic acid, and ethanol). Here, the effects of reducing agents on the production of biochemicals from H2/CO2 using C. ljungdahlii were studied. It was found that the element S and reducing power could significantly affect the production of biochemicals, and cysteine (Cys) was better than sodium sulfide for the production of biochemicals, especially for the production of 2,3-butanediol. Moreover, comparing to the control (i.e., without the addition of Cys), the gene expression profiles indicated that the fdh and adhE1 were significantly upregulated with the addition of Cys, which involved in pathways of the CO2 fixation and ethanol production. Therefore, the irreplaceability of Cys on the production of biochemicals was both caused by its utilization as a reducing agent and its effect on the metabolic pathway. Finally, compared to the control, the production of 2,3-butanediol was increased by 2.17 times under the addition of 1.7 g/L Cys.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

The authors received financial support from the Beijing Natural Science Foundation, China (No. 5182025); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Public Research Institutes of Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine (No. 2020JK004); the National Natural Science Foundation of China, China (No. 21406240); and the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Nos. 2015AA021002 and 2014AA021005) .

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Light Industry and Food Engineering, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, China

    Yuling Yang, Zhiqian Liu, Linli Qin & Xinquan Liang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Yuling Yang, Weifeng Cao, Fei Shen & Yinhua Wan

  3. School of Chemical Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Weifeng Cao, Fei Shen & Yinhua Wan

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  1. Yuling Yang
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  2. Weifeng Cao
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  5. Linli Qin
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  7. Yinhua Wan
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Contributions

YY carried out the experiment and analyzed data. WC (Weifeng Cao) conceived and designed research. FS contributed new reagents or analytical tools. QL and YW conducted experiments. WC and YY wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Weifeng Cao or Xinquan Liang.

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Yang, Y., Cao, W., Shen, F. et al. L-Cys-Assisted Conversion of H2/CO2 to Biochemicals Using Clostridium ljungdahlii. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 195, 844–860 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-022-04174-2

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