Developing the tools for engineering the alga Euglena gracilis
Project Summary: Sustainable development with net zero greenhouse gas emissions will require new technologies to capture CO2 and make valuable products. Photosynthetic algae can realise this goal, turning CO2 into biomass and high value compounds, such as the dye astaxanthin. Recent advances in algal metabolic engineering allows yield increase for the natural products, but also the introduction of novel genes and pathways to make desired compounds with minimal environmental impact.
Euglena gracilis is an important alga due to its complex evolutionary history, genetic and cellular diversity, unique biology, and intricate metabolism, allowing it to produce a wide array of metabolites. Industrial interest in Euglena has led to it being used for the production of biofuels, due to its synthesis of wax esters, for bioremediation, due to its ability to grow In a wide range of environments and sequester heavy metals, and for the production of nutritional supplements, due to its synthesis of polyunsaturated fatty acids and β-glucans.
Despite the opportunities for metabolic engineering to produce high-value biomolecules in Euglena, efficient genetic engineering tools are limited. Establishing an efficient transformation method and advanced synthetic biology toolkit for metabolic engineering of E. gracilis would increase the value of this alga for industrial biotechnological, as well as provide tools for the understanding of fundamental biology in this group of organisms. Building on the recent demonstration of nuclear transformation of Euglena, in this project the student will be involved in the development of a reliable and easy to use synthetic biology toolkit for the genetic manipulation of Euglena gracilis.
The student will test and optimise different protocols for reliable transformation of these algae using parts recently developed in our lab. This will include Agrobacterium mediated transformation, optimising the growth stage, timelines and selection protocols, and electroporation, optimising the DNA and cell concentrations, electroporation protocols and selection methods. The student will also help develop and evaluate different control elements to control expression levels of genes of interest. This will involve selecting the parts, building the constructs, transforming the algae using the optimised protocols and evaluating the expression levels of marker genes. Following recent successes in other organisms, combinatorial assembly using libraries of different parts will be used to optimise production.
This project will allow for reliable genetic manipulation of Euglena gracilis and provide the basis for our ongoing work in production of therapeutic proteins, high value compounds and metabolic engineering in this industrially important alga.
Training: There is potential for presenting the research at the Algae UK conference in November 2024.