美国华盛顿大学等机构研究人员在新一期英国Nature Communications杂志上发表报告说，他们发现一种细菌可以在有氧气存在的自然条件下生产氢气，有望成为较廉价的氢气来源。

“蓝藻菌51142”细菌在有氧环境可生产氢气

报告说，这种名为“蓝藻菌51142”的细菌在白天和夜晚的生理活动不同。在白天有光线的时候，它可以进行光合作用，生成氧气和糖分；而在夜晚，它会燃烧白天生成的糖分来提供能量，这个过程会耗尽细胞内的氧气，使得固氮酶可以安全工作，在有氧环境中也可生产氢气。

通常，固氮酶只要和氧气接触就会被破坏，因此此前发现的一些可生产氢气的微生物都需要在无氧环境中工作，使得产氢成本提高。

研究人员希马徳里·帕克莱希说，他们正计划对这种细菌进行基因改造，进一步提高其产氢量。（生物谷Bioon.com）

生物谷推荐原文出处：

Nature Communications doi:10.1038/ncomms1139

High rates of photobiological H2 production by a cyanobacterium under aerobic conditions

Anindita Bandyopadhyay,Jana St?ckel,Hongtao Min,Louis A. Sherman& Himadri B. Pakrasi

Among the emerging renewable and green energy sources, biohydrogen stands out as an appealing choice. Hydrogen can be produced by certain groups of microorganisms that possess functional nitrogenase and/or bidirectional hydrogenases. In particular, the potential of photobiological hydrogen production by oxygenic photosynthetic microbes has attracted significant interest. However, nitrogenase and hydrogenase are generally oxygen sensitive, and require protective mechanisms to function in an aerobic extracellular environment. Here, we describe Cyanothece sp. ATCC 51142, a unicellular, diazotrophic cyanobacterium with the capacity to generate high levels of hydrogen under aerobic conditions. Wild-type Cyanothece 51142 can produce hydrogen at rates as high as 465?μmol per mg of chlorophyll per hour in the presence of glycerol. Hydrogen production in this strain is mediated by an efficient nitrogenase system, which can be manipulated to convert solar energy into hydrogen at rates that are several fold higher, compared with any previously described wild-type hydrogen-producing photosynthetic microbe.