title: Cyanobacteria as Chassis for Industrial Biotechnology: Progress and Prospects.
abstract: Cyanobacteria hold significant potential as industrial biotechnology (IB) platforms for the production of a wide variety of bio-products ranging from biofuels such as hydrogen, alcohols and isoprenoids, to high-value bioactive and recombinant proteins. Underpinning this technology, are the recent advances in cyanobacterial "omics" research, the development of improved genetic engineering tools for key species, and the emerging field of cyanobacterial synthetic biology. These approaches enabled the development of elaborate metabolic engineering programs aimed at creating designer strains tailored for different IB applications. In this review, we provide an overview of the current status of the fields of cyanobacterial omics and genetic engineering with specific focus on the current molecular tools and technologies that have been developed in the past five years. The paper concludes by giving insights on future commercial applications of cyanobacteria and highlights the challenges that need to be addressed in order to make cyanobacterial industrial biotechnology more feasible in the near future.
authors.affiliation: Biology Department, College of Science, Sultan Qaboos University, Al-Khoud, P.O. Box 36, Muscat 123, Oman. lamya@squ.edu.om.
authors.forename: Lamya
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Al-Haj
authors.affiliation: Institute of Structural & Molecular Biology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK. y.lui.12@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Yuen Tin
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Lui
authors.affiliation: Biology Department, College of Science, Sultan Qaboos University, Al-Khoud, P.O. Box 36, Muscat 123, Oman. rabed@squ.edu.om.
authors.forename: Raeid M M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Abed
authors.affiliation: Biology Department, College of Science, Sultan Qaboos University, Al-Khoud, P.O. Box 36, Muscat 123, Oman. moh.gomaa@live.com.
authors.forename: Mohamed A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Gomaa
authors.affiliation: Institute of Structural & Molecular Biology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK. s.purton@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Saul
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Purton
keywords: bio-products; biofuels; biotechnology; cyanobacteria; genetic engineering