We are proud to share a new joint publication arising from our long-term collaboration with Roman Sobotka’s research group at the Algatech Centre (Institute of Microbiology, CAS). The study reveals a previously unknown role of cyanophycinase (CphB) in enabling heterotrophic growth in the model cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803.
The Algatech team discovered that deleting the cphB gene completely blocks light-activated heterotrophic growth. To uncover the metabolic basis of this phenotype, our laboratory contributed targeted LC-HRMS metabolomics, which showed that CphB is essential for activating arginine biosynthesis and for maintaining a balanced carbon–nitrogen and nucleotide metabolism during the transition from photosynthesis to heterotrophy.
Together, the teams demonstrated that CphB interacts with the key arginine-pathway enzyme ArgD and stimulates cyanophycin degradation, revealing a tightly coordinated metabolic system unique to cyanobacteria.
