Biotechnology Letters, Vol.36, No.3, 561-566, 2014
Method for assembling and expressing multiple genes in the nucleus of microalgae
The green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, is a model organism used in the study of photosynthesis and biotechnological research. Despite its importance, a complete set of genetic tools has yet to be developed. Here, we report the development of a new method for constructing a multi-gene pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and integrating the assembled pathway into the nuclear genome of C. reinhardtii. To demonstrate the use of this method, we assembled and functionally expressed up to three reporter proteins (Ble, AphVIII, and GFP) simultaneously in the nucleus of C. reinhardtii. This new molecular tool should aid efforts to engineer microalgae for biofuel and biopharmaceutical production.
Keywords:Chlamydomonas reinhardtii;Genetic tools for microalgae;Microalgae;Nuclear genome engineering;Synthetic biology