Discovery of a super-strong promoter enables efficient production of heterologous proteins in cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria are oxygenic photosynthetic prokaryotes that play important roles in the global carbon cycle. Recently, engineered cyanobacteria capable of producing various small molecules from CO2 have been developed. However, cyanobacteria are seldom considered as factories for producing proteins, mainly because of the lack of efficient strong promoters. Here, we report the discovery and verification of a super-strong promoter P(cpc560), which contains two predicted promoters and 14 predicted transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs). Using P(cpc560), functional proteins were produced at a level of up to 15% of total soluble protein in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. 6803, a level comparable to that produced in Escherichia coli. We demonstrated that the presence of multiple TFBSs in P(cpc560) is crucial for its promoter strength. Genetically transformable cyanobacteria neither have endotoxins nor form inclusion bodies; therefore, P(cpc560) opens the possibility to use cyanobacteria as alternative hosts for producing heterogeneous proteins from CO2 and inorganic nutrients.