3.1 Identifying the effective reactions in NADH production
The appropriate reactions contributing to an increase in the intracellular NADH generation of Synechocystis were predicted and shown in Fig. 3A. The reactions depicted on the top possessed the activity difference of 1. Furthermore, their minimum flux under maximum NADH production rate is more than their maximum flux under the minimum NADH production rate (Fig. 1A), and thus there were proposed for up-regulation. In contrast, down-regulation should be considered for those reactions revealed on the bottom with the activity difference of -1 in which their minimum flux under minimum NADH production rate is more than the maximum flux under maximum NADH production rate (Fig. 1B). The maximum and minimum NADH production rates were calculated to be 2.1 and 0 mmol/gDCW/h, respectively. The predicted reactions were prepared in more detail in the Supplementary file (Tables S1 and S2). Moreover, a complete name of all reactions and metabolites were presented in the Supplementary file (Tables S3 and S4), respectively.
The predicted effective metabolic pathways for enhancing NADH are schematically represented in Fig. 3B. Herein, two crucial metabolic pathways for converting acetate (ac) to acetyl-CoA (accoa) that possessed a significant activity difference were selected. As shown in Fig. 3C, acetate could be consumed via the acetyl-CoA synthetase (ACS) by converting ATP to AMP. Besides, this metabolite can also be used through a series of reactions, including acetate kinase (ACKr_f) and phosphotransacetylase (PTAr_b), by conversion of ATP to ADP (Fig. 3C). Thus, acetate kinase and phosphotransacetylase were recommended to produce acetyl-CoA, which then enters the TCA cycle and causes NADH to form via malate dehydrogenase (MDH_f).
The systemic approach also recommended that glycerol 3-phosphate (glyc3p) played a vital role in NADH generation. As demonstrated in Fig. 3B, a red dashed line that starts with glyoxalate carboligase pathway (GLXCL) and ends with glycerol kinase (GLYK), consumed three moles NADH along with one mole of ATP to produce glycerol 3-phosphate. These pathways occur as a series of reactions that each reaction possesses the same flux through the metabolic network leading to 0 mmol/gDCW/h NADH generation (Table 1). Therefore, they are regarded as proper candidates to be down-regulated. Moreover, glycerol 3-phosphate could also be produced by glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (G3PD2_b), which consumes only one mole of NADH without ATP consumption. Green arrows show this pathway in Fig. 3B. Glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase possesses the same reaction rates as the mentioned series reactions but leads to 2.1 mmol/gDCW/h NADH generation (Table 1). Thus, its up-regulation should be taken to prevent NADH and ATP loss via other metabolic pathways.
Table 1
Comparison of reaction rates for generating glycerol 3-phosphate. The fluxes are presented in the unit of mmol/gDCW/h.
Reaction
Name
|
Reaction
Description
|
Reaction of G3PD2_b and the objective function are maximal (mmol/gDCW/h).
|
Reaction of G3PD2_b and the objective function are zero
(mmol/gDCW/h).
|
Activity
Difference
|
GLXCL
|
Glyoxalate carboligase
|
0
|
0.0138
|
-0.9618
|
TRSARr_f
|
Tartronate semialdehyde reductase
|
0
|
0.0138
|
-0.9618
|
GLYALDDr_b
|
D-glyceraldehyde dehydrogenase
|
0
|
0.0138
|
-1
|
ALCD19_f
|
Alcohol dehydrogenase
|
0
|
0.0138
|
-1
|
GLYK
|
Glycerol kinase
|
0
|
0.0138
|
-1
|
G3PD2_b
|
Glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase
|
0.0138
|
0
|
1
|
NADH_pro
|
|
2.1
|
0
|
1
|
The suffixes _f and _b indicate the forward and backward directions of a reaction, respectively. |
A further investigation into metabolic pathways depicted in (Fig. 3B), showed that the generated glycerol 3-phosphate produces acyl carrier protein (acp), which is then used to form CoA, which can be utilized by (PTAr_b). Furthermore, the hypothetical glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase reactions (G3PAT Rxns) comprise nine reactions generating acyl carrier protein, in which their details were mentioned in the Supplementary file (Table S5).
3.2 Microbial enrichment and open circuit potential (OCP) monitoring
With regard to the introduced reactions by metabolic modeling in Fig. 3A, phosphotransacetylase and glutamate dehydrogenase were taken into consideration because of the availability of their regulators. As reported in Brenda and previously published studies, 40mM NH4Cl resulted in 3-fold stimulation of phosphotransacetylase 23, and 50mM KCl led to an increase in 170% activity of glutamate dehydrogenase 24. Hence, three suspensions for microbial enrichment were used including Synechocystis + BG-11, Synechocystis + BG-11 + 50mM KCl, and Synechocystis + BG-11 + 40mM NH4Cl. Having concluded an effective biofilm formation during open circuit conditions 25, which established a uniform biofilm facilitating substrate diffusion and electron transfer, the microbial enrichment of the BPV has been done by monitoring the open circuit potential (OCP). Thus, the OCP evolution of the three culture media was shown in Fig. 4.
Considering the OCP of the sole culture medium of BG-11, the addition of activators (i.e., KCl or NH4Cl) bring about a significant increase in the OCP of the BPV. Since Nernst's equation depicting the effective parameters on the electrochemical OCP, the higher cell potentials strongly depend on the activation of redox species implying the critical role of KCl and NH4Cl in this increment.
By observing a noticeable decrease in OCP, the fresh medium was injected into the BPV, as shown by arrows in Fig. 4. The replacement of the fresh culture medium with the old one causes an increase in the OCP trend. Since the BPV operated in the batch mode with high cell density (\({OD}_{750 }=3.5\pm 0.1\)), the potential reduction can be attributed to the depletion of nutrients; thus, fresh medium injection compensates for the potential drop. This phenomenon was also shown previously in the work of Madiraju et al. 22, in which replenishing minerals led to an increase in power density. Moreover, for the culture media with activator, this abrupt growth in the OCP was higher than the sole culture medium of BG-11. A comparison between Figs. 4A and 4B reveal that the culture medium of Synechocystis + BG-11 + 40mM NH4Cl obtained the higher OCP and more prolonged stationary phase. This issue puts the emphasis on the more impact of this culture medium on the cell potential compared to the BG-11 + 50mM KCl.
3.3 Polarization and power density curves
The effect of external resistance on the BPV performance fed with various culture media types was investigated by monitoring current evolution. Figure 5A depicted the current evolution of Synechocystis for BG-11, BG-11 + KCl, and BG-11 + NH4Cl culture media at 500, 500, and 750 kΩ external resistances, respectively. The presence of KCl increased the maximum produced current of the BPV by more than 8.8% compared with its value when the initial culture medium of BG-11 was fed. The addition of NH4Cl to BG-11 had a remarkable influence on the current production and increased the maximum current density of the cell more than 2-fold compared with the BPV fed by BG-11. This incremental phenomenon was obtained at a higher external resistance of 750 kΩ, which was comparable to the other media implying more increase have to be obtained in the same external resistance (i.e., 500 kΩ).
Additionally, the stationary phase in the current evolution (shown by two dashed horizontal arrows in Fig. 5A) of the BG-11 + NH4Cl fed BPV was longer compared to the BPV cultured BG-11 and BG-11 + KCl, indicating a stable current density by extension feed replacement.
(Fig. 5)
The BPV overpotentials (including activation, ohmic, and concentration) can be investigated by applying different external resistances to polarize the cell. The polarization curves of four types of BPV feed was illustrated in Fig. 5B. The abrupt reductions of cell potentials in the polarization curves of BG-11 + Synechocystis and BG-11 + KCl + Synechocystis indicate the high activation overpotential to extract the electron from the cellular metabolism. This type of overpotential was remarkably higher than two other overpotentials (i.e., ohmic and concentration overpotentials) characterized at the middle and end of polarization curves. Activation overpotential represents the energy that microbes required to transfer electrons from their surface to the electrode 26. These high drops corroborate the hypothesis presented in previous researches 5,9, indicating the incapability of Synechocystis to transfer electrons from its membrane due to the competition of numerous metabolic pathways for energy resources. Moreover, the absence and presence of cyanobacteria in the BG-11 culture medium demonstrated the incapability of Synechocystis in generating electrons. Although the addition of KCl increased the current density, the initial sharp reduction could not be compensated. However, for the BPV fed BG-11 + NH4Cl + Synechocystis, the cell potential reduction was exceedingly made up, revealing the impressive role of NH4Cl to compensate for the activation loss of metabolic reactions and extract electrons from light and water.
Furthermore, the higher current densities obtained at lower external resistances show the augmented electron production and accentuate the stimulation of cell electrogenesis metabolic pathways. Low activation losses owned to the fact that phosphotransacetylase had a crucial role in converting acetate to acetyl-CoA, assisting the cell to maintain a balance between biosynthesis and energy production 27. Therefore, the overexpression of this enzyme by NH4Cl could facilitate electrons transfer.
Moreover, the occurrence of the overshoot phenomenon resulting from sudden electron depletion at low external resistances that cannot be compensated by microorganisms 28 was observed in the BPV fed with all four types of culture media (Fig. 5B). The overshoot in the BPV fed with BG-11 + KCl + Synechocystis led to a more than 31 % decrease in the current density (from 0.1913 to 0.1306 mA m− 2). The culture medium used NH4Cl as an activator showed a better performance in compensating electron depletions and only brought about a 6.6 % decrease in the produced current. This is another evidence emphasizing the crucial role of NH4Cl, which improves Synechocystis electrogenesis metabolic pathways.
The power density curves for three culture media were shown in Fig. 5C to Fig. 5E. The BPV fed by BG-11 + NH4Cl + Synechocystis achieved the maximum power density of 148.27 mW m− 2, which is more than 40.5-fold of what was obtained for the BPV fed with BG-11 + Synechocystis (Fig. 5C).
The maximum produced power density for BG-11 + KCl + Synechocystis was 10.97 mW m− 2 (Fig. 5D). Despite the higher salt concentration, this power density was 13.5 times lower than the BPV fed by BG-11 + NH4Cl + Synechocystis. Achieving a higher power density by NH4Cl compared to KCl can be related to the fact that KCl had an adverse effect on some critical metabolic pathways, which is discussed in the Supplementary file (Table S6). Therefore, with regard to the role of KCl in the stimulation of glutamate dehydrogenase, it cannot be helpful in electrogenesis metabolism as much as NH4Cl.
Furthermore, to scrutinize the effect of NH4Cl on diminishing intracellular constraints, Synechocystis was removed from the BPV. In this case, the maximum produced power density for BG-11 + NH4Cl was 13.72 mW m− 2 (Fig. 5E). This power density was more than 10-fold lower than the maximum power density of the BPV fed with BG-11 + NH4Cl + Synechocystis. The abiotically produced power density is mainly attributed to the medium salinity 26,29. Therefore, the presence of NH4Cl results in the metabolic stimulation of Synechocystis rather than the anolyte conductivity improvement. Thus, the addition of NH4Cl can play a critical role in shifting the Synechocystis metabolism to produce more electricity.
3.4 Biofilm Morphology
FESEM micrographs of Synechocystis in BG-11 and BG-11 + NH4Cl were illustrated in Fig. 6. In both cases, a small portion of cells attached to the anode's surface. This low biofilm formation reported here is similar to those investigated by 5 in which 8.5% of Synechocystis attached to the anode's surface made of indium tin oxide-coated polyethylene terephthalate (ITO-PET). Consequently, the addition of NH4Cl to BG-11 had a small impact on the biofilm morphology, and the observed power density enhancement is mainly attributed to the improvement of electrogenesis metabolic pathways.