Repurposing the evolutionary fitness of marine bacteria for water-conserving conversion of lignin-derived carbon
Abstract
Reverting waste carbon into chemicals and materials with minimal freshwater reliance is essential for a sustainable future. Here, we report the establishment of a blue biological scheme by repurposing the evolutionary fitness of the marine bacterium Roseovarius nubinhibens for efficient conversion of lignin-derived carbon into valuable chemicals with seawater as a water source. We create independency of the superior catalytic capacity of R. nubinhibens to circumvent a rare polar effect, and genetically decouple the bioproduction pathway from central metabolism, channeling all lignin-derived carbon into desired products. Next, an orthogonal growth module is generated with acetate as a second carbon source, which is a ubiquitous byproduct and inhibitor in plant biomass hydrolysis, to sustain cell growth and supply necessary resources, but not substrates, for the growth-coupled bioproduction. Besides this designed metabolic segregation, we identify a cross-module push-and-pull synergy between bioproduction and cell growth, enabling enhanced performance and robustness. By deploying this biological scheme, we successfully achieve escalated conversion of the lignin-derived monomer 4-hydroxybenzoate to value-added compounds protocatechuate and β-ketoadipate with seawater, rather than freshwater, as the water source, generating a distinct blue biological scheme with potential for simultaneous carbon and water conservation.
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BibTeX
@article{wei2026repurposing,
title = {{Repurposing the evolutionary fitness of marine bacteria for water-conserving conversion of lignin-derived carbon}},
author = {Ying Wei and Pei-Ru Chen and Bo Gong and Xian-Zheng Yuan and Shu-Guang Wang and Peng-Fei Xia},
journal = {Nature Communications},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-78209-1},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78209-1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Repurposing the evolutionary fitness of marine bacteria for water-conserving conversion of lignin-derived carbon
AU - Ying Wei
AU - Pei-Ru Chen
AU - Bo Gong
AU - Xian-Zheng Yuan
AU - Shu-Guang Wang
AU - Peng-Fei Xia
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - Nature Communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-78209-1
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78209-1
AB - Reverting waste carbon into chemicals and materials with minimal freshwater reliance is essential for a sustainable future. Here, we report the establishment of a blue biological scheme by repurposing the evolutionary fitness of the marine bacterium Roseovarius nubinhibens for efficient conversion of lignin-derived carbon into valuable chemicals with seawater as a water source. We create independency of the superior catalytic capacity of R. nubinhibens to circumvent a rare polar effect, and genetically decouple the bioproduction pathway from central metabolism, channeling all lignin-derived carbon into desired products. Next, an orthogonal growth module is generated with acetate as a second carbon source, which is a ubiquitous byproduct and inhibitor in plant biomass hydrolysis, to sustain cell growth and supply necessary resources, but not substrates, for the growth-coupled bioproduction. Besides this designed metabolic segregation, we identify a cross-module push-and-pull synergy between bioproduction and cell growth, enabling enhanced performance and robustness. By deploying this biological scheme, we successfully achieve escalated conversion of the lignin-derived monomer 4-hydroxybenzoate to value-added compounds protocatechuate and β-ketoadipate with seawater, rather than freshwater, as the water source, generating a distinct blue biological scheme with potential for simultaneous carbon and water conservation.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -