Salt and heat stress enhances hydrogen production in cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria are among the most suitable organisms for the capture of excessive amounts of CO₂ and can be grown in extreme environments. In our research we use the single-celled freshwater cyanobacteria Synechococcus elongatus PCC7942 PAMCOD strain and Synechocystis sp. PCC6714 for the production of carbohydrates and hydrogen. PAMCOD strain and Synechocystis sp. PCC6714 synthesize sucrose when exposed to salinity stress, as their main compatible osmolyte. We examined the cell proliferation rate and the sucrose accumulation in those two different strains of cyanobacteria under salt (0.4 M NaCl) and heat stress (35 ⁰C) conditions. The intracellular sucrose (mol sucrose content per Chl a) was found to increase by 50% and 108% in PAMCOD strain and Synechocystis sp. PCC6714 cells, respectively. As previously reported, PAMCOD strain has the ability to produce hydrogen through the process of dark anaerobic fermentation (Vayenos D, Romanos GE, Papageorgiou GC, Stamatakis K (2020) Photosynth Res 146, 235-245). In the present study, we demonstrate that Synechocystis sp. PCC6714 has also this ability. We further examined the optimal conditions during the dark fermentation of PAMCOD and Synechocystis sp. PCC6714 regarding H₂ formation, increasing the PAMCOD H₂ productivity from 2 nmol H₂ h^- 1 mol Chl a^- 1 to 23 nmol H₂ h^- 1 mol Chl a^- 1. Moreover, after the dark fermentation, the cells demonstrated proliferation in both double BG-11 and BG-11 medium enriched in NaNO₃, thus showing the sustainability of the procedure.