It is important to obtain abundant sugar feedstocks economically and sustainably for bio-fermentation industry, especially for producing cheap biofuels and biochemicals. Besides plant biomass, photosynthetic cyanobacteria have also been considered to be potential microbe candidates for sustainable production of carbohydrate feedstocks. As the fastest growing cyanobacterium reported so far, Synechococcus elongatus UTEX 2973 (Syn2973) might have huge potential for bioproduction. In this study, we explored the potentials of this strain as photo-bioreactors for sucrose and glycogen production. Under nitrogen-replete condition, Syn2973 could accumulate glycogen with a rate of 0.75 g L(-1) day(-1) at the exponential phase and reach a glycogen content as high as 51 % of the dry cell weight (DCW) at the stationary phase. By introducing a sucrose transporter CscB, Syn2973 was endowed with an ability to secrete over 94 % sucrose out of cells under salt stress condition. The highest extracellular sucrose productivity reached 35.5 mg L(-1) h(-1) for the Syn2973 strain expressing cscB, which contained the similar amounts of intracellular glycogen with the wild type. Potassium chloride was firstly proved to induce sucrose accumulation as well as sodium chloride in Syn2973. By semi-continuous culturing, 8.7 g L(-1) sucrose was produced by the cscB-expressing strain of Syn2973 in 21 days. These results support that Syn2973 is a promising candidate with great potential for production of sugars.

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BackgroundCyanobacteria have shown promising potential for the production of various biofuels and chemical feedstocks. Synechococcus elongatus UTEX 2973 is a fast-growing strain with pronounced tolerance to high temperatures and illumination. Hence, this strain appears to be ideal for the development of photosynthetic biotechnology. However, molecular insights on how this strain can rapidly accumulate biomass and carbohydrates under high-light and high-temperature conditions are lacking.ResultsDifferential RNA-Sequencing (dRNA-Seq) enabled the genome-wide identification of 4808 transcription start sites (TSSs) in S. elongatus UTEX 2973 using a background reduction algorithm. High light promoted the transcription of genes associated with central metabolic pathways, whereas the highly induced small RNA (sRNA) PsrR1 likely contributed to the repression of phycobilisome genes and the accelerated glycogen accumulation rates measured under this condition. Darkness caused transcriptome remodeling with a decline in the expression of genes for carbon fixation and other major metabolic pathways and an increase in the expression of genes for glycogen catabolism and Calvin cycle inhibitor CP12. Two of the identified TSSs drive the transcription of highly abundant sRNAs in darkness. One of them is widely conserved throughout the cyanobacterial phylum. Its gene is fused to a protein-coding gene in some species, illustrating the evolutionary origin of sRNAs from an mRNA 3′-end.ConclusionsOur comprehensive set of genome-wide mapped TSSs, sRNAs and promoter activities will be valuable for projects requiring precise information about the control of transcription aimed at metabolic engineering and the elucidation of stress acclimation mechanisms in this promising strain.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13068-018-1215-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.