蓝藻Hox氢酶催化产氢的调控

Hydrogen-producing regulation of Hox hydrogenases in cyanobacteria

蓝藻是唯一能通过光合作用产生清洁可再生燃料氢气的原核微生物。一些蓝藻具有催化产氢活性的镍-铁Hox氢酶(双向氢酶),由于其巨大的应用潜力受到广泛的关注。但Hox氢酶在蓝藻产氢过程中调控途径尚不清楚。本文对蓝藻Hox氢酶的结构、生态分布和表达调控的研究进展进行了总结。简单介绍了作者近来对模式蓝藻Synechocystis sp.PCC 6803 hox操纵子中两个未知功能基因ssl2420和sll1225的研究结果。

Cyanobacteria are the only prokaryotes that are able to produce clean, renewable fuel hydrogen gas through oxygenic photosynthesis. The hox-encoded bidirectional Ni-Fe hydrogenases in some cyanobacteria species, capable of evolving hydrogen gas, has continued to attract interest due to their application potential. However, the regulation of their enzymatic activity remains largely unexplained. In this review, we summarized the structure, ecological distribution and expression regulation of Hox hydrogenases in cyanobacteria. Besides, we briefly introduced our recent studies on two hypothetic genes, ssl2420 and sll1225 in the hox operon of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, and discussed the possible roles of this gene pair in the differential expression of hox components.