The Molecular Mechanism Of Phaeodactylum Tricornutum Lipid Accumulation

Microalgae biosynthesize high amount of lipids and show high potential for renewable biodiesel production.However,the production cost of microalgae-derived biodiesel hampers large-scale biodiesel commercialization and new strategies for increasing lipid production efficiency from algae are urgently needed.Here we submitted the marine algae Phaeodactylum tricornutum to a 4-day dark stress,a condition increasing by 2.3-fold the lipid cell quotas,and studied the cellular mechanisms leading to lipid accumulation using a combination of biochemical,proteomic(iTRAQ)and transcriptomic(qRT-PCR)approaches.Our results show that the expression of proteins in the biochemical pathways of glycolysis and the synthesis of fatty acids were induced in the dark using excess carbon and nitrogen produced from protein breakdown.Treatment of algae in the dark could be part of a new efficient strategy for optimizing biodiesel production since it increases algal lipid production at low cost.