Affiliation:
1. Key Laboratory of Organic Solids Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences Institute of Chemistry Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100190 P. R. China
2. College of Chemistry University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100049 P. R. China
3. Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials Department of Chemistry National University of Singapore Singapore 119077 Singapore
Abstract
AbstractA conductive polymer‐based photosynthetic biohybrid is constructed to enhance biological nitrogen fixation by increasing nitrogenase activity in the non‐photosynthetic bacterium Azotobacter Chroococcum (A. Chroococcum). The light‐harvesting cationic poly(fluorene‐alt‐phenylene) (PFP) electrostatically binds to the surface of the bacteria and possesses satisfactory conductivity to facilitate electron transfer to the bacterium, promoting the nitrogen fixation pathway through redox proteins on the surface of the bacteria when under illumination. Therefore, the nitrogenase activity, hydrogen, NH4+‐N and L‐amino acids production are increased by 260 %, 37 %, 44 %, and 47 %, respectively. The expression levels of nifD and nifK encoding molybdenum‐iron (MoFe) protein and relevant nitrogen‐fixing proteins are up‐regulated. These photoactive conductive polymer‐bacteria biohybrids provide a new method for improving the biological nitrogen fixation capability of non‐photosynthetic nitrogen‐fixing bacteria.
Funder
National Natural Science Foundation of China
K. C. Wong Education Foundation