Light-driven fine chemical production in yeast biohybrids

Light-powered cell factories Bacteria and fungi are used industrially to produce commodity fine chemicals at vast scale. Sugars are an economical feedstock, but many of the desired products require enzymatic reduction, meaning that some of the sugar must be diverted to regenerate the cellular reductant NADPH (reduced form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate). Guo et al. show that electrons from light-sensitive nanoparticles can drive reduction of cellular NADPH in yeast, which can then be used for reductive biosynthetic reactions. This system can reduce diversion of carbon to NADPH regeneration and should be compatible with many existing engineered strains of yeast. Science , this issue p. 813