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Title: Identification of regulatory network hubs that control lipid metabolism in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Journal Article · · Journal of Experimental Botany
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erv217· OSTI ID:1343282
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [5];  [1]
  1. Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA (United States)
  2. New Mexico State Univ., Las Cruces, NM (United States)
  3. Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO (United States); National Center of Biomedical Analysis, Beijing (China)
  4. Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States)
  5. Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO (United States); Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States)

Microalgae-based biofuels are promising sources of alternative energy, but improvements throughout the production process are required to establish them as economically feasible. One of the most influential improvements would be a significant increase in lipid yields, which could be achieved by altering the regulation of lipid biosynthesis and accumulation. Chlamydomonas reinhardtii accumulates oil (triacylglycerols, TAG) in response to nitrogen (N) deprivation. Although a few important regulatory genes have been identified that are involved in controlling this process, a global understanding of the larger regulatory network has not been developed. In order to uncover this network in this species, a combined omics (transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic) analysis was applied to cells grown in a time course experiment after a shift from N-replete to N-depleted conditions. Changes in transcript and protein levels of 414 predicted transcription factors (TFs) and transcriptional regulators (TRs) were monitored relative to other genes. The TF and TR genes were thus classified by two separate measures: up-regulated versus down-regulated and early response versus late response relative to two phases of polar lipid synthesis (before and after TAG biosynthesis initiation). Lipidomic and primary metabolite profiling generated compound accumulation levels that were integrated with the transcript dataset and TF profiling to produce a transcriptional regulatory network. In conclusion, evaluation of this proposed regulatory network led to the identification of several regulatory hubs that control many aspects of cellular metabolism, from N assimilation and metabolism, to central metabolism, photosynthesis and lipid metabolism.

Research Organization:
Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Center for Advanced Biofuel Systems (CABS); Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0001295
OSTI ID:
1343282
Journal Information:
Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol. 66, Issue 15; ISSN 0022-0957
Publisher:
Oxford University PressCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 80 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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