Saxton, L. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2024

Establishing the green algae Chlamydomonas incerta as a platform for recombinant protein production

Chlamydomonas incerta, a genetically close relative of the model green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, shows significant potential as a host for recombinant protein expression. Because of the close genetic relationship between C. incerta and C. reinhardtii, this species offers an additional reference point for advancing our understanding of photosynthetic organisms, and also provides a potential new candidate for biotechnological applications. This study investigates C. incertas capacity to express three recombinant proteins: the fluorescent protein mCherry, the hemicellulose-degrading enzyme xylanase, and the plastic-degrading enzyme PHL7. We have also examined the capacity to target protein expression to various cellular compartments in this alga, including the cytosol, secretory pathway, cytoplasmic membrane, and cell wall. When compared directly with C. reinhardtii, C. incerta exhibited a distinct but notable capacity for recombinant protein production. Cellular transformation with a vector encoding mCherry revealed that C. incerta produced approximately 3.5 times higher fluorescence levels and a 3.7-fold increase in immunoblot intensity compared to C. reinhardtii. For xylanase expression and secretion, both C. incerta and C. reinhardtii showed similar secretion capacities and enzymatic activities, with comparable xylan degradation rates, highlighting the industrial applicability of xylanase expression in microalgae. Finally, C. incerta showed comparable PHL7 activity levels to C. reinhardtii, as demonstrated by the in vitro degradation of a polyester polyurethane suspension, Impranil(R) DLN. Finally, we also explored the potential of cellular fusion for the generation of genetic hybrids between C. incerta and C. reinhardtii as a means to enhance phenotypic diversity and augment genetic variation. We were able to generate genetic fusion that could exchange both the recombinant protein genes, as well as associated selectable marker genes into recombinant offspring. These findings emphasize C. incertas potential as a robust platform for recombinant protein production, and as a powerful tool for gaining a better understanding of microalgal biology. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=126 SRC="FIGDIR/small/618925v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (25K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@173d398org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@148ad36org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@63b5e9org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@3be081_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2024

Bioinformatic prediction and high throughput in vivo screening to identify cis-regulatory elements for the development of algal synthetic promoters

Algae biotechnology holds immense promise for revolutionizing the bioeconomy through the sustainable and scalable production of various bioproducts. However, its development has been hindered by the lack of advanced genetic tools. This study introduces a synthetic biology approach to develop such tools, focusing on the construction and testing of synthetic promoters. By analyzing conserved DNA motifs within the promoter regions of highly expressed genes across six different algal species, we identified cis-regulatory elements (CREs) associated with high transcriptional activity. Combining the algorithms POWRS, STREME and PhyloGibbs, we predicted 1511 CREs and inserted them into a minimal synthetic promoter sequence in 1, 2 or 3 copies, resulting in 4533 distinct synthetic promoters. These promoters were evaluated in vivo for their capacity to drive the expression of a transgene in a high-throughput manner through next-generation sequencing post antibiotic selection and fluorescence-activated cell sorting. To validate our approach, we sequenced hundreds of transgenic lines showing high GFP expression. Further, we individually tested fourteen identified promoters, revealing substantial increases in GFP expression--up to nine times higher than the baseline synthetic promoter, with five matching or even surpassing the performance of the native AR1 promoter. As a result of this study, we identified a catalog of CREs that can now be used to build superior synthetic algal promoters. More importantly, here we present a validated pipeline to generate building blocks for innovative synthetic genetic tools applicable to any algal species with a sequenced genome and transcriptome dataset. Graphical Abstract O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=140 SRC="FIGDIR/small/585996v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (44K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1869cd4org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@a25d8dorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1abd96forg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1501bc8_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

synthetic biology↗