Efficient Cas9-based genome editing of Rhodobacter sphaeroides for metabolic engineering

Background Rhodobacter sphaeroides is a metabolically versatile bacterium that serves as a model for analysis of photosynthesis, hydrogen production and terpene biosynthesis. The elimination of by-products formation, such as poly-β-hydroxybutyrate (PHB), has been an important metabolic engineering target for R. sphaeroide s. However, the lack of efficient markerless genome editing tools for R. sphaeroides is a bottleneck for fundamental studies...