Yeast with backlight

Scientists have installed "solar panels" on yeast cells

Sergey Vasiliev, Naked Science

In modern industry, countless lines of yeast cells are used, filling huge fermenters and producing the right substances – usually from simple sugar molecules. Biosynthesis does not require high temperatures, pressure and other dangerous and expensive techniques, often necessary for conventional chemical synthesis. On the other hand, a considerable part of the resources going into the bioreactor are uneconomically spent on the vital activity of the yeast itself, and the problem of increasing the efficiency of biosynthesis remains relevant.

A new original approach to this problem was proposed by developers from Harvard University, whose article was published in the journal Nature (Guo et al., Light-driven fine chemical production in yeast biohybrids). Junling Guo and his colleagues were able to cover fungal cells with indium phosphide nanoparticles: this semiconductor is able to capture the energy of solar radiation and reduce the expenditure of chemical resources spent on yeast metabolism.

The fact is that a great many biochemical reactions in cells occur through the mediation of the NADP coenzyme. It is restored – it takes on an electron (for example, in plant chloroplasts during photosynthesis), and then gives it away (for example, during photosynthetic synthesis of glucose). Semiconductor nanoparticles actually carry out a similar process: photons knock out electrons from them, which enter the cell and stimulate the recovery of NADP.

Part of the yeast nutrition previously spent on this task can be used for industrially valuable synthesis. This was confirmed by the experiments carried out by the authors in the laboratory: the production of shikimic acid (the basis for obtaining the popular antiviral agent Tamiflu) by cells carrying "solar panels" of semiconductor nanoparticles on the surface turned out to be three times more efficient than that of conventional yeast.

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