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Establishing Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as an industrial biotechnology host.


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Authors

Scaife, Mark A 
Nguyen, Ginnie TDT 
Rico, Juan 
Lambert, Devinn 
Helliwell, Katherine E 

Abstract

Microalgae constitute a diverse group of eukaryotic unicellular organisms that are of interest for pure and applied research. Owing to their natural synthesis of value-added natural products microalgae are emerging as a source of sustainable chemical compounds, proteins and metabolites, including but not limited to those that could replace compounds currently made from fossil fuels. For the model microalga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, this has prompted a period of rapid development so that this organism is poised for exploitation as an industrial biotechnology platform. The question now is how best to achieve this? Highly advanced industrial biotechnology systems using bacteria and yeasts were established in a classical metabolic engineering manner over several decades. However, the advent of advanced molecular tools and the rise of synthetic biology provide an opportunity to expedite the development of C. reinhardtii as an industrial biotechnology platform, avoiding the process of incremental improvement. In this review we describe the current status of genetic manipulation of C. reinhardtii for metabolic engineering. We then introduce several concepts that underpin synthetic biology, and show how generic parts are identified and used in a standard manner to achieve predictable outputs. Based on this we suggest that the development of C. reinhardtii as an industrial biotechnology platform can be achieved more efficiently through adoption of a synthetic biology approach.

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Keywords

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, industrial biotechnology, metabolic engineering, rational design, synthetic biology, transgene expression, Biotechnology, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Metabolic Engineering, Synthetic Biology

Journal Title

Plant J

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0960-7412
1365-313X

Volume Title

82

Publisher

Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Sponsorship
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/I013164/1)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/I00680X/1)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/M018180/1)
European Commission (311956)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/D011043/1)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/L002957/1)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/L014130/1)
M.A.S and J.R were funded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) grant BB/I00680X/1, M.A.S was also funded by the European Commission 7th Framework Programme (FP7) project SPLASH (Sustainable PoLymers from Algae Sugars and Hydrocarbons), grant agreement number 311956. G.T.D.T.N was funded in part by Murray Edwards College and the Cambridge Philosophical Society. D.L. was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and K.E.H was funded by BBSRC grant BB/I013164/1.