Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK
| Received 27 Jun 2022 |
Accepted 24 Dec 2022 |
Published 07 Feb 2023 |
Globally, agriculture depends on industrial nitrogen fertilizer to improve crop growth. Fertilizer production consumes fossil fuels and contributes to environmental nitrogen pollution. A potential solution would be to harness nitrogenases—enzymes capable of converting atmospheric nitrogen N2 to NH3 in ambient conditions. It is therefore a major goal of synthetic biology to engineer functional nitrogenases into crop plants, or bacteria that form symbiotic relationships with crops, to support growth and reduce dependence on industrially produced fertilizer. This review paper highlights recent work toward understanding the functional requirements for nitrogenase expression and manipulating nitrogenase gene expression in heterologous hosts to improve activity and oxygen tolerance and potentially to engineer synthetic symbiotic relationships with plants.
