Fig. 1

Growth curves of different Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 strains cultivated in photobioreactor under varying conditions. Wild type strain (WT) grown in the presence of 15 mM supplemented acetate (black line) and in the absence of acetate (grey line) a under continuous light of 50 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹ for 10 d and b under continuous light of 20 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹ for 14 days. Acetate transporter expression strain (AT; red line) and control strain (CS; blue line) grown with 15 mM supplemented acetate starting from c OD₇₅₀ = 0.1 and d OD₇₅₀ = 0.05 under continuous light of 50 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹ for 10 days. e AT and CS grown under continuous light of 20 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹ for 9 days with 15 mM supplemented acetate. f AT and CS grown in the absence of acetate or IPTG induction under continuous light of 50 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹ for 11 days. g AT cultivated with supplemented with 30 mM acetate (dark red line), 7,5 mM acetate (red line) and no acetate (light red line) under continuous light of 20 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹for 11 d. h AT and CS grown for 11 days under continuous light of 250 μmol photons m⁻² s⁻¹ with 15 mM supplemented acetate. All cultures were started from OD₇₅₀ = 0.05, and AT and CS were grown in the presence of IPTG, unless stated otherwise. AT and CS were always cultivated with 25 µg/mL Spec and 12,5 µg/mL Str to maintain the selection pressure for the expression plasmid (c–h), which resulted in slower overall growth in comparison to WT cultured without antibiotics (a, b). In each case, the graphs are representatives of at least three parallel biological replicate cultures, with the exception of the negative controls in g and f with two replicates (see Additional file 2 for more comprehensive set of the growth curves)