Eli J. Dugan

This study investigates the functional plasticity of HCO3- uptake and CO2 fixation in C. necator H16 by testing endogenous and heterologous genes, showing that DIC transporters can support autotrophic growth and higher cell densities.

The paper demonstrates that a bacterial CO2 concentrating mechanism enables E. coli to fix CO2 from ambient air using 20 CCM genes.

The paper identifies a novel class of inorganic carbon transporters in chemoautotrophic bacteria through a genome-wide screen and characterizes their function as energy-coupled bicarbonate pumps.