Bioengineering microalgae for their application as green cell factories
Microalgae are capable of efficiently converting inorganic CO2 with the help of sunlight energy and water splitting into organic biomass, which is composed of energy-rich carbon-based compounds. With this ability, microalgae have the potential to serve as “green cell factories” for bio-industries by bioengineering the direct catalysis of production processes for fine or bulk chemicals. However, in order to compete with heterotrophic bacteria systems in industrial biotechnology, bottlenecks such as limitations in photosynthesis, carbon fixation, and carbon partitioning towards the products of interest, as well as the availability of powerful molecular tools for the generation of mutants with enhanced efficiency as green cell factories have to be overcome. New achievements and insights into the design of synthetic constructs for efficient gene/protein expression and pathway engineering, performed with the microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii for the efficient synthesis of a variety of carbon-based products, will be presented with a specific focus on diterpenes and pigments.
