TY - JOUR
T1 - Engineering artificial photosynthetic life-forms through endosymbiosis
AU - Cournoyer, Jason E.
AU - Altman, Sarah D.
AU - Gao, Yang-le
AU - Wallace, Catherine L.
AU - Zhang, Dianwen
AU - Lo, Guo-Hsuen
AU - Haskin, Noah T.
AU - Mehta, Angad P.
N1 - This work was supported by the Moore–Simons Project on the Origin of the Eukaryotic Cell, GBMF9732, grant https://doi.org/10.37807/GBMF9732. This funding was received by A.P.M. The research reported in this publication was also supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01GM139949. This funding was received by A.P.M. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. A.P.M. thanks Prof. Peter Schultz (Scripps Research), Dr. Lubica Supekova (Scripps Research), Prof. Susan Golden (UCSD) and Prof. Wilfred van der Donk (UIUC) for comments and discussions.
PY - 2022/4/26
Y1 - 2022/4/26
N2 - The evolutionary origin of the photosynthetic eukaryotes drastically altered the evolution of complex lifeforms and impacted global ecology. The endosymbiotic theory suggests that photosynthetic eukaryotes evolved due to endosymbiosis between non-photosynthetic eukaryotic host cells and photosynthetic cyanobacterial or algal endosymbionts. The photosynthetic endosymbionts, propagating within the cytoplasm of the host cells, evolved, and eventually transformed into chloroplasts. Despite the fundamental importance of this evolutionary event, we have minimal understanding of this remarkable evolutionary transformation. Here, we design and engineer artificial, genetically tractable, photosynthetic endosymbiosis between photosynthetic cyanobacteria and budding yeasts. We engineer various mutants of model photosynthetic cyanobacteria as endosymbionts within yeast cells where, the engineered cyanobacteria perform bioenergetic functions to support the growth of yeast cells under defined photosynthetic conditions. We anticipate that these genetically tractable endosymbiotic platforms can be used for evolutionary studies, particularly related to organelle evolution, and also for synthetic biology applications.
AB - The evolutionary origin of the photosynthetic eukaryotes drastically altered the evolution of complex lifeforms and impacted global ecology. The endosymbiotic theory suggests that photosynthetic eukaryotes evolved due to endosymbiosis between non-photosynthetic eukaryotic host cells and photosynthetic cyanobacterial or algal endosymbionts. The photosynthetic endosymbionts, propagating within the cytoplasm of the host cells, evolved, and eventually transformed into chloroplasts. Despite the fundamental importance of this evolutionary event, we have minimal understanding of this remarkable evolutionary transformation. Here, we design and engineer artificial, genetically tractable, photosynthetic endosymbiosis between photosynthetic cyanobacteria and budding yeasts. We engineer various mutants of model photosynthetic cyanobacteria as endosymbionts within yeast cells where, the engineered cyanobacteria perform bioenergetic functions to support the growth of yeast cells under defined photosynthetic conditions. We anticipate that these genetically tractable endosymbiotic platforms can be used for evolutionary studies, particularly related to organelle evolution, and also for synthetic biology applications.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-022-29961-7
DO - 10.1038/s41467-022-29961-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 35474066
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 13
SP - 2254
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
ER -