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Title: A refined genome-scale reconstruction of Chlamydomonas metabolism provides a platform for systems-level analyses

Journal Article · · The Plant Journal
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.13059· OSTI ID:1378660
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [4]
  1. Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA (United States)
  2. Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA (United States); Friedrich-Schiller-Univ. Jena, Jena (Germany)
  3. Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA (United States); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
  4. Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA (United States); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Microalgae have reemerged as organisms of prime biotechnological interest due to their ability to synthesize a suite of valuable chemicals. To harness the capabilities of these organisms, we need a comprehensive systems-level understanding of their metabolism, which can be fundamentally achieved through large-scale mechanistic models of metabolism. In this study, we present a revised and significantly improved genome-scale metabolic model for the widely-studied microalga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The model, iCre1355, represents a major advance over previous models, both in content and predictive power. iCre1355 encompasses a broad range of metabolic functions encoded across the nuclear, chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes accounting for 1355 genes (1460 transcripts), 2394 and 1133 metabolites. We found improved performance over the previous metabolic model based on comparisons of predictive accuracy across 306 phenotypes (from 81 mutants), lipid yield analysis and growth rates derived from chemostat-grown cells (under three conditions). Measurement of macronutrient uptake revealed carbon and phosphate to be good predictors of growth rate, while nitrogen consumption appeared to be in excess. We analyzed high-resolution time series transcriptomics data using iCre1355 to uncover dynamic pathway-level changes that occur in response to nitrogen starvation and changes in light intensity. This approach enabled accurate prediction of growth rates, the cessation of growth and accumulation of triacylglycerols during nitrogen starvation, and the temporal response of different growth-associated pathways to increased light intensity. Thus, iCre1355 represents an experimentally validated genome-scale reconstruction of C. reinhardtii metabolism that should serve as a useful resource for studying the metabolic processes of this and related microalgae.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1378660
Journal Information:
The Plant Journal, Vol. 84, Issue 6; ISSN 0960-7412
Publisher:
Society for Experimental BiologyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 45 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Current status and applications of genome-scale metabolic models journal June 2019
Traceability, reproducibility and wiki-exploration for “à-la-carte” reconstructions of genome-scale metabolic models journal May 2018
Metabolic flux analysis of heterotrophic growth in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii journal May 2017
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Development of a Chlamydomonas reinhardtii metabolic network dynamic model to describe distinct phenotypes occurring at different CO 2 levels journal January 2018
Inferring Biochemical Reactions and Metabolite Structures to Understand Metabolic Pathway Drift journal February 2020
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