Development of sustainable energy is a pivotal step towards solutions for today’s global challenges,
including mitigating the progression of climate change and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Biofuels
derived from agricultural crops have already been commercialized. However the impacts on environmental
sustainability and food supply have raised ethical questions aboutthe current practices. Cyanobacteria
have attracted interest as an alternative means for sustainable energy productions. Being aquatic photoautotrophs
they can be cultivated in non-arable lands and do not compete for land for food production.
Their rich genetic resources offer means to engineer metabolic pathways for synthesis of valuable biobased
products. Currently the major obstacle in industrial-scale exploitation of cyanobacteria as the
economically sustainable production hosts is low yields. Much effort has been made to improve the
carbon fixation and manipulating the carbon allocation in cyanobacteria and their evolutionary photosynthetic
relatives, algae and plants. This review aims at providing an overview of the recent progress in
the bioengineering of carbon fixation and allocation in cyanobacteria; wherever relevant, the progress
made in plants and algae is also discussed as an inspiration for future application in cyanobacteria.