Advances in organic acid production using cyanobacteria: Strategies and applications
Open accessAbstract
Cyanobacteria, the photosynthetic microorganisms, offer a promising platform for sustainable organic acid production because of their ability to fix atmospheric carbon dioxide and harness light energy. The global demand for bio-based organic acids is rising in response to stricter environmental regulations and the growing emphasis on sustainable, fossil-free production methods. Due to the multifunctional roles and economic significance, organic acids have attracted significant attention both in research and industrial applications. Microbial synthesis of organic acids using fungi, bacteria, and cyanobacteria offers a sustainable alternative to petrochemical routes. Notably, recent advances in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering have enabled cyanobacteria and other photoautotrophic organisms to be explored as sustainable platforms for CO 2 -based production, offering greener alternatives to conventional fermentation processes. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the metabolic pathways involved in organic acid synthesis in cyanobacteria, highlighting key genetic modifications and environmental factors that influence production efficiency. It also examines the optimization of cultivation parameters, including light intensity, nutrient composition, and CO 2 levels, which have significantly enhanced productivity. In addition, genetic and systems-level strategies for enhancing organic acid production are discussed. Insights from recent omics-based studies have deepened our understanding of the underlying mechanisms, laying a solid foundation for future research and the rational design of more robust cyanobacterial strains. Furthermore, this review discusses the industrial applications of organic acids in multiple sectors, emphasizing how cyanobacteria-based biosynthesis contributes to carbon footprint reduction and sustainable biomanufacturing. Despite these advancements, challenges such as genetic stability, low yields, by-product formation, and bioreactor scalability remain major obstacles for commercial production. Finally, recent case studies illustrate successful strategies in strain engineering and process optimization, highlighting the growing potential of cyanobacteria-based production systems.
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Imbalances in enzyme expression can result in accumulation of intermediates, decreased pathway efficiency, or increased metabolic burden on the host organism.
“Imbalances in enzyme expression can result in the accumulation of intermediates, decreased pathway efficiency, or increased metabolic burden on the host organism [154,155].”
From Cyanobacteria as a Photosynthetic Chassis for Metabolic Pathway Engineering with Heterologous Gene Expression (2026) · cites this paper as [155]
The “Genetic and systems-level approaches” section (page unavailable) says that overexpressing bottleneck enzymes enhances pathway flux and that flux-redirection strategies can increase intermediate toxicity and impose metabolic burden. It does not specifically attribute all three outcomes to imbalances in enzyme expression. (LLM, conf=0.79)
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Walshe, J., & Saha, S. K. (2026) · Current Issues in Molecular Biology · doi:10.3390/cimb48060638 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
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Salt stress in cyanobacteria and its relevance to energy management
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Pan, C., Chen, H., Zhang, M., He, S., & Lin, Z. (2026) · Chemical Science · doi:10.1039/d6sc06370e
- Authors
- Pathania, R., & Srivastava, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Florida (US)
- Czech Academy of Sciences (CZ)
- Corresponding author
- Pathania, Ruchi
- Srivastava, Amit
- Venue
- Blue Biotechnology
- Published
- 2025-11-06
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 2948-2364 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4415995390
- Cited by
- 4
- References
- 158
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4
- FWCI
- 1.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Blue Biotechnology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Microbial Metabolic Engineering and Bioproduction
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Algal biology and biofuel production
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Photosynthetic Processes and Mechanisms
- Keywords
- cyanobacteria, organic acid production, metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, CO2 fixation, photosynthetic microorganisms, strain engineering, cultivation parameter optimization, light intensity, nutrient composition, CO2 concentration, bioproduction, carbon footprint reduction, genetic stability
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