A new photobioreactor concept enabling the production of desiccation induced biotechnological products using terrestrial cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria offer great potential for the production of biotechnological products for pharmaceutical applications. However, these organisms can only be cultivated efficiently using photobioreactors (PBR). Under submerged conditions though, terrestrial cyanobacteria mostly grow in a suboptimal way, which makes this cultivation-technique uneconomic and thus terrestrial cyanobacteria unattractive. Therefore, a novel emersed photobioreactor (ePBR) has been developed, which can provide the natural conditions for these organisms. Proof of concept as well as first efficiency tests are conducted using the terrestrial cyanobacteria Trichocoleus sociatus as a model organism. The initial maximum growth rate of T. sociatus (0.014 ± 0.001 h−1) in submerged systems could be increased by 35%. Furthermore, it is now possible to control desiccation-correlated product formation and related metabolic processes. This is shown for the production of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). In this case the yield of 0.068 ± 0.006 g of EPS/g DW could be increased by more than seven times.