Abstract
Photosynthetic activity of cyanobacteria is a prominent driver of cell-surface catalysed extracellular calcium carbonate (CaCO3) precipitation. This natural process termed “biomineralization” occurs only under specific circumstances but has given rise to significant carbonate rock formation throughout geological time. Engineering cyanobacterial cell surfaces for enhanced and constitutive biomineralization of abundant ocean-water dissolved Ca2+ and flue-gas CO2 into CaCO3 may allow for the biotechnological re-capture of CO2 released by industrial processes such as thermal decarboxylation of CaCO3. This may both limit net greenhouse gas emissions and transform CaCO3 into a sustainable resource. Drawing from geological precedent and basic biological research, this perspective outlines promising synthetic biology strategies to convert cyanobacterial biomineralization into a cornerstone technology for a sustainable carbonate economy.
1 Introduction
1.1 Oxygenic photosynthesis and carbonate rocks: from deep time to climate solutions
Oxygenic photosynthesis may have evolved as early as 3.8–3.5 Gya (Rosing and Frei, 2004; Tice and Lowe, 2004; Oliver et al., 2021) and has shaped the Earth more than any other physiological process. Light-driven water splitting has not only resulted in the enrichment of the atmosphere with molecular oxygen (Luo et al., 2016) but also affected the geological record through, e.g., oxidation of ocean-water-dissolved iron, resulting in large-scale deposition of banded iron formations (Thompson et al., 2019). Beyond that, aquatic oxygenic photosynthesis is associated with the precipitation of carbonate minerals such as dolomite (MgCa(CO3)2) and calcite or aragonite (both CaCO3) in a process called “biomineralization” (Merz, 1992; Riding, 1992). Biomineralization has given rise to most extant carbonate rocks (Vasconcelos et al., 1995), which consist of >50% carbonate minerals and make up for 20%–25% of all sedimentary rocks and as much as 10% of all rocks exposed at the Earth’s surface (Parker, 1967). Such dolostones (dolomite) and limestones (aragonite and calcite) are estimated to store over 80% of the Earth’s carbon (), but limestone is being extensively sourced as raw material for industry and agriculture. Upon mining, limestone is commonly converted into quicklime (CaO) through thermal decarboxylation (Niu et al., 2022; ), with CaO extraction for cement production alone causing around 7% of global CO2 emissions (). As less than half of this CO2 is subsequently re-sequestered through cement carbonation (Xi et al., 2016), CaO production contributes significantly to atmospheric CO2 enrichment and anthropogenic climate change (; Jones et al., 2023). Mitigating the latter through reduction of net CO2 emissions and opening up CaCO3 as a sustainable resource could be achieved by coupling CaCO3 thermolysis with microbial biomineralization that re-precipitates released CO2 and abundant ocean-water-dissolved Ca2+ into CaCO3, thus paving the way towards a more sustainable carbonate economy. While cyanobacterial biomineralization has been discussed as a potential means of cost-efficient CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) for more than a decade (Jansson and Northen, 2010; Kamennaya et al., 2012) and some inherently productive calcifying species could be identified (Lee et al., 2004; Liang et al., 2013) little practical progress has been made in this field. In this perspective, we suggest a new approach to reason-guided enhancement of light-driven, cell-surface catalysed CaCO3 precipitation in planktonic cyanobacteria, allowing to harness this mechanism for future biotechnological applications.
1.2 Cyanobacterial cell-surface CaCO3 precipitation: passive yet engineerable
Cyanobacteria are photolithoautotrophic prokaryotes and the only recent bacteria known to perform oxygenic photosynthesis. Cyanobacterial photosynthetic activity is assumed to have given rise to significant limestone sediments (Kaźmierczak et al., 1996; ; ) such as stromatolites (i.e., lithified laminated organosedimentary deposits) and micritic mudstones (Kaźmierczak et al., 1996; Suosaari et al., 2016). While in some cyanobacteria intracellular formation of CaCO3 granules has been documented (; Moreira et al., 2017), extracellular CaCO3 precipitation is more commonplace and an arguably much more promising engineering target for light-driven biomineralization. This may technically allow to uncouple cell-surface catalysed carbonate precipitation from biomass production on which most approaches discussed for cyanobacterial CCS rely (; Victoria et al., 2024).
Cyanobacterial CaCO3 precipitation is widely considered a passive byproduct of light-driven metabolic activity (Obst et al., 2009), with CaCO3 crystal formation being largely determined by alkaline conditions in the aqueous media, availability of Ca2+ cations, and presence of heterogenous crystallisation nuclei (Jroundi et al., 2022). Cyanobacteria in particular provide all these conditions in the microenvironment around their cells due to (i) media alkalization in the wake of photosynthetic carbon assimilation of CO2 from HCO3− releasing hydroxide ions (OH−) and thus increasing the extracellular pH to up to 10.5 (), and (ii) production of cell-surface components such as acidic exopolysaccharides (EPS) (Kamennaya et al., 2018; ; Martinho De Brito et al., 2023) and negatively-charged surface-layer (S-layer) proteins (Schultze-Lam et al., 1992) attracting Ca2+ and nucleating CaCO3 crystallisation. Further contributing to (bi-) carbonate ion availability, some cyanobacteria produce active extracellular carbonic anhydrase (eCA) enzymes which catalyse the hydration of water-dissolved CO2 into HCO3−/H+, presumably as a means of re-capturing CO2 leaving the cell by diffusion (Soltes-Rak et al., 1997; Trimborn et al., 2009). While likely fostering extracellular CaCO3 mineralisation (Kupriyanova et al., 2007; ), no direct benefits of cyanobacterial eCA for carbon assimilation have been documented in so far (Kupriyanova et al., 2024), rendering its physiological relevance elusive. Light-driven processes underlying passive cell-surface catalyzed biomineralization (Obst et al., 2009; ) and its intersection with anthropogenic biogeochemical carbon cycle contributions () are schematically summarized in Figure 1. With all relevant components being mechanistically understood, cyanobacteria are uniquely suited as synthetic biology chassis for engineered CaCO3 production.
FIGURE 1
2 Perspective
2.1 Seawater Ca2+ availability might enable scalable CO2 mineralization
Large-scale precipitation of water-dissolved CO2 as CaCO3 will require considerable amounts of Ca2+. With ocean water containing approximately 10 mM Ca2+ (Millero et al., 2008;
2.2 Promising engineering targets for enhanced CaCO3 biomineralization
2.2.1 Cyanobacterial EPS remodelling
Bacterial EPS have been shown to be potent inducers of CaCO3 precipitation (
2.2.2 Outer-membrane porins
Being Gram-negative bacteria, cells of cyanobacteria are enclosed by a second lipid bilayer membrane (i.e., the outer membrane) which is commonly equipped with pore-forming beta-barrel proteins (porins) facilitating the uptake of small molecules (Vergalli et al., 2020). Such outer membrane porins have been engineering targets to alter cell surface properties in both Escherichia coli (
2.2.3 Surface display of synthetic Ca2+-enriching polypeptides
Exposure of peptides on the surface of bacterial cells has been developed into a potent screening tool for affinity engineering (Rice and Daugherty, 2008; Kenrick and Daugherty, 2010). Relying on engineered variants of relatively small outer membrane proteins such as the beta-barrel proteins OmpX (Vogt and Schulz, 1999) and OmpA (Ruppert et al., 1994; Shi and Wen Su, 2001), these approaches are largely limited to extension of protein termini or exposed loops. This, however, bears the risk of compromising folding and insertion into the outer membrane. First successful engineering attempts of OmpA towards Ca2+ binding by insertion of an EF hand motif resulted in a binding capacity of one Ca2+ per OmpA (Johansson et al., 2007), which is likely insufficient for major enhancements of CaCO3 precipitation capacity. Meanwhile, targeting fully synthetic oligopeptides with Ca2+ binding capacity provided through, e.g., DXD, DXXD, DXDXDG, or DDXX (S/T) S motifs (Rigden and Galperin, 2004; Wu et al., 2008; Mishra et al., 2012) to the outer membrane via suitable secretion signal and transit peptides including palmitoylation sites for surface-exposed outer membrane anchoring (Wilson and Bernstein, 2016) may be a preferable alternative, but has not been achieved so far. Like porin engineering, synthetic peptide surface display likely requires genetic removal of obstructing EPS or S-Layer components, or the utilization of picoplanktonic strains inherently lacking such obstruction, like the emerging biotech chassis Picosynechococcus sp. PCC 7002 (Šmarda et al., 2002;
2.2.4 Synthetic S-layers
Paracrystalline protein surface layers have been described in many phylogenetically distinct bacteria (
2.2.5 Overexpression and surface-immobilization of eCA enzymes
In vitro, eCA activity has been shown to foster CaCO3 mineralization under high CO2 partial pressures (Srivastava et al., 2015;
2.3 Drafting optimal light-driven CaCO3 biomineralization in cyanobacteria
Omitting the seemingly impractical engineering of cyanobacterial EPS, the previous considerations culminate in two promising strategies towards reason-guided enhancement of light-driven biomineralization. A schematic overview of engineered strains following both strategies, relying on modified S-layers and free eCA on the one hand, or synthetic Ca2+-enriching polypeptides and surface-immobilized eCA on the other hand, is provided in Figure 2.
FIGURE 2

Enhancing light-driven CaCO3 precipitation in engineered cyanobacteria. Hexameric symmetry and Ca2+ binding sites of the S-layer-forming RsaA protein from Caulobacter crescentus, adapted from (
3 Discussion
3.1 Small is beautiful – why cyanobacteria may outshine eukaryotic biomineralizers
Storing CO2 in the form of stable carbonate minerals faces fewer engineering and environmental challenges than other sequestration approaches like deep sea storage or deep ground injection, while maintaining minimal leakage risk as demonstrated by its natural counterpart (Ma et al., 2024). In natural systems, carbonate rocks are predominantly formed through biological and biologically induced processes, commonly summarized in the notion that carbonates are born, not made (James and Jones, 2016). Nowadays, photosynthetic plankton constitutes the most prolific carbonate factory, with recently evolved coccolithophore haptophyte algae producing around 50% of Holocene marine CaCO3 sedimentation (
3.2 Towards geobiologically inspired carbon recovery and storage
In accordance with their large contribution to the geological record, the utilization of cyanobacterial biomineralization for CCS was suggested before (Jansson and Northen, 2010), but no significant upscaling or commercial application has been achieved so far. Owing to a focus on EPS and the practical inaccessibility of complex anionic EPS biosynthesis to genetic and metabolic engineering, previous studies have near-exclusively focused on the identification of inherently productive calcifying species (Lee et al., 2004; Liang et al., 2013) and conductive cultivation methods (McCutcheon et al., 2014). A single genetic engineering attempt to increase calcification capacities was limited to the knockout of cax1 (Ca2+/H+ antiporter) in the mesophilic freshwater model species Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, resulting in enhanced BCT1 (Ca2+-dependent HCO3− transporter) activity, increased CCM activity, and thus increased CaCO3 precipitation (Jiang et al., 2013). Despite these first successes, biomineralization yields remain insufficient for large-scale applications. With documented rates of cyanobacterial Ca2+ precipitation from saltwater media corresponding to approximately 120–240 mg of CaCO3 per liter of batch culture over a 2-week cultivation cycle (Lee et al., 2004; Yang et al., 2023), precipitation of 1 metric ton (t) of CaCO3 would require the equivalent of two Olympic swimming pools (i.e., ∼5*106 L). This corresponds to approximately 5.8 t of CO2 sequestration capacity per Olympic swimming pool equivalent per year, valued around 430 € worth of CO2 certificates at current EU Emissions Trading System pricing. Hence, an increase in biomineralization capacity by several orders of magnitude is likely required to attain economic viability. Although no comprehensive understanding of the modulation of CaCO3 crystallization through biological agents has been achieved to date, mechanic deformation of heterogenous nucleation sites alone has been reported to increase CaCO3 nucleation rate by one order of magnitude (Taylor et al., 2020). Meanwhile, calcite and aragonite nuclei were found the only nuclei capable of markedly catalyzing CaCO3 precipitation in natural surface seawater (Pan et al., 2021), highlighting the crucial importance of crystallization nuclei surface properties for efficient CaCO3 mineralization. As crystallization rates in more complex biogenic systems such as supersaturated lysozyme solution have been found to increase by 8-10 orders of magnitude upon exposure to suitable heterogenous nuclei (
As opposed to previous attempts, engineering cyanobacterial cell surface properties through the introduction of modified or synthetic protein components and simultaneous genetic removal of obstructive features can be expected to allow for enhanced cell-surface catalysis of CaCO3 precipitation. Especially recent breakthroughs in protein structure prediction and engineering (Watson et al., 2023) render this new approach worth pursuing. Here, a two-pronged empirical approach of introducing a re-engineered S-layer or disorganized synthetic cell-surface peptides with Ca2+ binding capacity appears a reasonable choice to determine the most conductive strategy, while EPS engineering remains prohibitively complex and porin/OMP engineering likely too functionally constrained for large-scale Ca2+ attraction and nucleation site provision. Finally, utilization of thermophilic chassis strains accessible for genetic engineering such as Thermosynechococcus elongatus BP-1 which strives at cultivation temperatures as high as 55 °C (Yamaoka et al., 1978;
Statements
Data availability statement
The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
Author contributions
MF: Writing – original draft, Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing – review and editing. MD: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Visualization, Writing – review and editing, Writing – original draft.
Funding
The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the Technical University of Darmstadt (FiF Project Grant 2024#17 to MF and MD).
Acknowledgments
We thank Anne-Christin Pohland for critical reading of this manuscript.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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The author(s) declare that no Generative AI was used in the creation of this manuscript.
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Summary
Keywords
biomineralization and calcification, cyanobacteria, photosynthesis, cell surface engineering, CaCO3
Citation
Falkenroth M and Dann M (2025) Engineering light-driven biomineralization for a sustainable carbonate economy. Front. Photobiol. 3:1619812. doi: 10.3389/fphbi.2025.1619812
Received
30 April 2025
Accepted
11 July 2025
Published
21 July 2025
Volume
3 - 2025
Edited by
Alberto Mezzetti, Sorbonne Universités, France
Reviewed by
José Bonomi-Barufi, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil
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© 2025 Falkenroth and Dann.
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*Correspondence: Marcel Dann, marcel.dann@tu-darmstadt.de
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