Advances in the bacterial organelles for CO fixation.

Carboxysomes are a family of bacterial microcompartments (BMCs), present in all cyanobacteria and some proteobacteria, which encapsulate the primary CO-fixing enzyme, Rubisco, within a virus-like polyhedral protein shell. Carboxysomes provide significantly elevated levels of CO around Rubisco to maximize carboxylation and reduce wasteful photorespiration, thus functioning as the central CO-fixation organelles of bacterial CO-concentration mechanisms. Their intriguing architectural features allow carboxysomes to make a vast contribution to carbon assimilation on a global scale. In this review, we discuss recent research progress that provides new insights into the mechanisms of how carboxysomes are assembled and functionally maintained in bacteria and recent advances in synthetic biology to repurpose the metabolic module in diverse applications.