earticle

영어

Hydrogen production in biological way can be one of solutions for energy crisis. Previously, we successfully demonstrate to produce biohydrogen by expressing [NiFe]-hydrogenase in recombinant E. coli.
Although [NiFe]-hydrogenase showed relatively high oxygen-tolerance compare to other hydrogenases, still biohydrogen production efficiency was low. In this work, we introduce proteorhodopsin, light acceptor for prokaryote working as proton pump, into [NiFe]-hydrogenase expressing recombinant E. coli for using light energy to produce biohydrogen.
Proteorhodopsin need a chemical named retinal for working as proton pump by using light energy but E. coli does not have a pathway to synthesize it. In order to give E. coli a ability to synthesize retinal, we express five foreign genes expressing enzymes for retinal synthesize pathway. By introducing light accepting system into E. coli expressing [NiFe]-hydrogenase, we could get enhanced biohydrogen productivity.