Scientists establish industrial oil-producing microalgae gene knockdown technology

Microalgae converts carbon dioxide, light, and water into oil and fat through photosynthesis. As a potential clean energy production and high-carbon dioxide solution, industrial oil microalgae has received extensive attention. However, the lack of efficient genetic tools for algae has been one of the major bottlenecks in the molecular breeding of industrial oil-producing microalgae and biosynthetic techniques for optical drive carbon fixation. Recently, the Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, took the lead in the establishment of a microalgae gene knockdown technology for industrial oil production. This result was published online on November 1st in The Plant Journal.

Nannochloropsis is a kind of industrial microalgae that can be cultivated in large scale outdoors using seawater or freshwater. It has the advantages of fast growth, strong carbon dioxide tolerance, strong accumulation of oils and fats, and high value of unsaturated fatty acids. It has become an energy source. One of the research model algae in the field of economic microalgae has also become the preferred choice for many microalgae carbon fixation demonstration projects at home and abroad. However, the lack of reverse genetic engineering technology has fundamentally hindered the genetic transformation of many industrial properties such as carbon dioxide fixation ability and oil production efficiency.

The research group led by Wei Li, a postdoctoral scholar at the Unicellular Center, developed a specific stem-loop structure in the Nannochloropsis oceanica IMET1 based on RNA interference technology by designing the inverted repeats of the target gene to achieve carbonic anhydrase. The success rate of knockdown of genes related to carbon metabolism, such as bicarbonate transporters, is 40% or more. Through the bisulfuric acid sequencing method, it was found that a specific region of the target gene displayed a unique methylation pattern in the gene silencing strain, thereby revealing the molecular mechanism of target gene silencing. The researchers also demonstrated that the technique is equally effective for another strain, N. oceanica CCMP1779, indicating that the technique is versatile.

This is the breakthrough of the genome editing technology of Microchicoccus, which was published by The Plant Journal again in the form of Technical Advance. Targeted gene knockdown technologies and genome editing technologies have their own unique features and complementary advantages. Therefore, the establishment, joint use, and industry sharing of the two technology platforms will promote the development of industrial carbon-fixing microalgae synthesis biology, and will also address energy microalgae molecules. Breeding technology has a positive and far-reaching impact.

The above work was co-chaired by Xu Jian, researcher of Qingdao Energy Institute, and Hu Yuhua, a research fellow of the Institute of Hydrobiology, and received preliminary support from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Development Committee, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences' carbon-containing gas utilization projects.

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