Molecular design of microalgae as sustainable cell factories.

Microalgae are regarded as sustainable and potent chassis for biotechnology. Their capacity for efficient photosynthesis fuels dynamic growth independent from organic carbon sources and converts atmospheric CO directly into various valuable hydrocarbon-based metabolites. However, approaches to gene expression and metabolic regulation have been inferior to those in more established heterotrophs (e.

Advanced pathway engineering for phototrophic putrescine production.

The polyamine putrescine (1,4-diaminobutane) contributes to cellular fitness in most organisms, where it is derived from the amino acids ornithine or arginine. In the chemical industry, putrescine serves as a versatile building block for polyamide synthesis. The green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii accumulates relatively high putrescine amounts, which, together with recent advances in genetic engineering, enables the generation of a powerful green cell factory to promote sustainable biotechnology for base chemical production.

Engineering a powerful green cell factory for robust photoautotrophic diterpenoid production.

Diterpenoids display a large and structurally diverse class of natural compounds mainly found as specialized plant metabolites. Due to their diverse biological functions they represent an essential source for various industrially relevant applications as biopharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and fragrances. However, commercial production utilizing their native hosts is inhibited by low abundances, limited cultivability, and challenging extraction, while the precise stereochemistry displays a particular challenge for chemical synthesis.

The Spermidine Synthase Gene : A Novel Auxotrophic Marker for Designed by Enhanced CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Editing.

Biotechnological application of the green microalga hinges on the availability of selectable markers for effective expression of multiple transgenes. However, biological safety concerns limit the establishment of new antibiotic resistance genes and until today, only a few auxotrophic markers exist for . The recent improvements in gene editing via CRISPR/Cas allow directed exploration of new endogenous selectable markers.

Rational Promoter Engineering Enables Robust Terpene Production in Microalgae.

Microalgal biotechnology promises sustainable light-driven production of valuable bioproducts and addresses urgent demands to attain a sustainable economy. However, to unfold its full potential as a platform for biotechnology, new and powerful tools for nuclear engineering need to be established. , the model for microalgal synthetic biology and genetic engineering has already been used to produce various bioproducts.

High cell density cultivation enables efficient and sustainable recombinant polyamine production in the microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Modern chemical industry calls for new resource-efficient and sustainable value chains for production of key base chemicals such as polyamines. The green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii offers great potential as an innovative green-cell factory by combining fast and inexpensive, phototrophic growth with mature genetic engineering. Here, overexpression of recombinant lysine decarboxylases in C.

Introns mediate post-transcriptional enhancement of nuclear gene expression in the green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Efficient nuclear transgene expression in the green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is generally hindered by low transcription rates. Introns can increase transcript abundance by a process called Intron-Mediated Enhancement (IME) in this alga and has been broadly observed in other eukaryotes. However, the mechanisms of IME in microalgae are poorly understood.