Abstract
Lipids in cyanobacteria include e.g. free fatty acid, membrane lipids, triacylglycerol, wax esters, which all play important roles in lipid metabolism and cell function. Lipid metabolism in cyanobacteria is composed of biosynthesis, secretion, degradation, and storage of lipids. In the lipid metabolic network, biosynthesis of free fatty acid and membrane lipids involves numerous enzymes and reaction steps, which all have been studied in the literature. However, the biosynthesis of triacylglycerol and wax esters, which are known as storage forms of lipids in lipid droplets, remained not very clear in cyanobacteria, with only a couple of related genes being identified. Although the above lipid biosynthesis is performed in the cyanobacterial cells, free fatty acid is the only lipid which can be secreted out of the cells, with the mechanism of secretion being well studied. Apart from the lipid secretion, the proposed pathways and putative genes involved in lipids degradation still need to be clarified. In all, this chapter discusses the present status of studies of lipid metabolism in cyanobacteria and current progress in engineering cyanobacteria for photosynthetic lipids production. Moreover, alka(e)ne and poly-β-hydroxybutyrate, which are two lipid-related products, are also included in this chapter.
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