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CyanoPhage
Mars exploration will require life-support consumables, which should be generated on site to be sustainable. Research is being performed to develop cyanobacteria-based photobioreactors that will convert light energy and Mars’s regolith and atmosphere into substrates for biomass and oxygen production, as a basis for biological life support systems (BLSS). However, BLSS are fragile; a single malfunction during a mission can result in a life-threatening crisis. Bacteriophage contamination of bioreactors is a major issue. The bacteriophages of cyanobacteria (called cyanophages) are ubiquitous in aquatic environments such as the North Sea and can undergo both lytic and lysogenic cycles, depending on the viruses and their environment (e. g. light). Both the contamination of the photobioreactor with lytic cyanophages and the induction of the lytic cycle in dormant (temperate) cyanophages could cause the rapid and massive lysis of the cyanobacteria with serious (fatal) consequences. However, cyanophage genomes can also harbour photosynthetic genes or genes involved with phosphate metabolism, which benefit their cyanobacterial hosts. To protect cyanobacteria-based BLSS from external cyanophage infection we propose to engineer the cyanobacterium starter strain to contain CRISPR-Cas elements that will protect it against future cyanophage infection. In the modest project Cyanophage 1 we will isolate from the North Sea a collection of cyanophages that are active against cyanobacterium strains (Limnospira genus) relevant to BLSS.