ATP production from electricity with a new-to-nature electrobiological module

• DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2023.07.012
• Publication Date: 2023-08-16T14:34:11Z
• Authors: Shanshan Luo; David Adam; Simone Giaveri; Sebastian Barthel; Stefano Cestellos...; Dominik Hege; Nicole Paczia; Leonardo Castañed...; Melanie Klose; Fabian Arndt; Johann Heider; Tobias J. Erb
• Keywords: Synthetic Biology

Electricity is paramount to the technical world and plays an increasingly important role as a future energy carrier. Yet, it not widely used directly power biological systems. Here, we designed new-to-nature electrobiological module, acid/aldehyde ATP cycle (AAA cycle), for direct conversion of electrical into ATP. The AAA contains minimum set enzymes does require membrane-based charge separation. Realizing propionate-based version cycle, demonstrate continuous, electricity-driven regeneration other storage molecules from −0.6 V vs. SHE at 2.7 μmol cm−2 h−1 faradaic efficiencies up 47%. Notably, compatible with complex cell-free systems, such in vitro transcription/translation, powering processing information electricity. This new link between worlds opens several possibilities applications synthetic biology, electrobiotechnology, bioelectrocatalysis.