Shedding Light on Light Use in Photosynthesis of Cultured Photosynthetic Microorganisms

The major challenge for the next decades is increasing the pace of the move towards a more widespread employment of cleaner technologies that lead to reductions in carbon footprint and industrial wastes. In this more environmentally sound context, an impressive research effort has been devoted to phototrophic microorganisms, such as cyanobacteria and microalgae, because they entail a multitude of applications that make them attractive as commercial commodities. For instance, they find usage in wastewater treatment and bioremediation, as energy sources for biodiesel production, and for extracting high-value biocompounds for the food and medical sectors, not to understate their fundamental role in long-term space missions as a source of food and oxygen, and for their bioremediation capacity. With these aims, several strains of cyanobacteria and microalgae have been cultured under different experimental settings in photobioreactors. However, the industrial production of algal biomass is hindered by many abiotic factors that reduce their productivity. Among these primary factors, light provides the energy needed to support algae growth, and the available irradiance must be exploited with the highest possible efficiency to optimize productivity and make the large-scale cultivation of algae energetically and economically sustainable. To achieve this goal, a deeper knowledge of the photosynthetic response of cyanobacteria and microalgae becomes pivotal to maintain algal cells in culture systems in the physiological conditions desired for the process of interest. In this scenario, we would like to collect recent studies investigating the photosynthetic processes of cyanobacteria and microalgae, cultured in laboratory-, pilot-, and large-scale indoor and outdoor systems, focusing on the photochemical and non-photochemical reactions occurring in response to imposed abiotic constraints, and providing an assessment of the absorbed light energy use efficiency. We also welcome contributions exploring and/or modeling the connections among the photosynthetic responses occurring at determined culture settings, and the metabolic pathways that are potentially exploitable in biotechnological applications.

Dr. Antonella Guzzon
Dr. Laura Bruno
Guest Editors

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• photosynthetic reactions
• photosynthesis
• cultured phototrophic microorganisms
• cyanobacteria
• microalgae
• photobioreactors