暗网禁区

HIGUCHI Haruka, a first-year student of the master’s course in the Environmental Biotechnology Lab., Agricultural Chemistry Program, Graduate School of 暗网禁区 (Associate Professor OSANAI Takashi), gave an oral presentation and was awarded the Best Oral Presentation at an international society for microalgae, the 4th International Congress on Euglenoids (EIN2025), held at I-site Namba, Osaka Metropolitan University on Monday, June 30 and Tuesday, July 1, 2025.

Approximately 100 on-site and 50 online participants gathered at the international conference to present and discuss research on microalgae, including Euglenoids. The conference included invited lectures, as well as general oral and poster presentations. In the general oral presentation section, students and professors from Japan and overseas gave research presentations in English, and young researchers were nominated for Best Oral Presentation. For the awards for Best Oral Presentation, after all presentations were completed, awards were given to the top two people by a vote of domestic and international PIs (Principal Investigators).

Title:
Improved fumarate titer in cyanobacteria via metabolic pathway engineering

Research content:
Metabolic engineering successfully enhanced fumaric acid production by cyanobacteria. Fumaric acid is an important organic acid that is used as a raw material for plastics and as a sour agent. However, the current production of fumaric acid is derived from fossil resources, and the environmental impact is an issue. Therefore, HIGUCHI aimed to establish a sustainable fumaric acid production technology using carbon dioxide as a raw material.
In this study, HIGUCHI modified arginine metabolism, which is the main pathway for fumaric acid production, using a genetic engineering method. As a result, the titer of fumaric acid was increased to about twice as high as the previous titer, and the highest titer of 3 g/L or more was achieved in high-density culture. This study contributes to the development of metabolic engineering for the realization of sustainable material production.

?Japanese version?