Life originated in an environment in which the atmosphere was reducing. More than 2.2 Gyr ago, photosynthetic bacteria managed to extract electrons from water, thereby releasing oxygen (O 2 ) as a side product (1

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Oleaginous photosynthetic microalgae hold great promise as non-food feedstocks for the sustainable production of bio-commodities. The algal lipid quality can be analysed by Raman micro-spectroscopy, and the lipid content can be imaged in vivo in a label-free and non-destructive manner by coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy. In this study, both techniques were applied to the oleaginous microalga Monoraphidium neglectum, a biotechnologically promising microalga resistant to commonly applied lipid staining techniques. The lipid-specific CARS signal was successfully separated from the interfering two-photon excited fluorescence of chlorophyll and for the first time, lipid droplet formation during nitrogen starvation could directly be analysed. We found that the neutral lipid content deduced from CARS image analysis strongly correlated with the neutral lipid content measured gravimetrically and furthermore, that the relative degree of unsaturation of fatty acids stored in lipid droplets remained similar. Interestingly, the lipid profile during cellular adaption to nitrogen starvation showed a two-phase characteristic with initially fatty acid recycling and subsequent de novo lipid synthesis. This works demonstrates the potential of quantitative CARS microscopy as a label-free lipid analysis technique for any microalgal species, which is highly relevant for future biotechnological applications and to elucidate the process of microalgal lipid accumulation.

Iron is a crucial cofactor in numerous redox-active proteins operating in bioenergetic pathways including respiration and photosynthesis. Cellular iron management is essential to sustain sufficient energy production and minimize oxidative stress. To produce energy for cell growth, the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii possesses the metabolic flexibility to use light and/or carbon sources such as acetate. To investigate the interplay between the iron-deficiency response and growth requirements under distinct trophic conditions, we took a quantitative proteomics approach coupled to innovative hierarchical clustering using different "distance-linkage combinations" and random noise injection. Protein co-expression analyses of the combined data sets revealed insights into cellular responses governing acclimation to iron deprivation and regulation associated with photosynthesis dependent growth. Photoautotrophic growth requirements as well as the iron deficiency induced specific metabolic enzymes and stress related proteins, and yet differences in the set of induced enzymes, proteases, and redoxrelated polypeptides were evident, implying the establishment of distinct response networks under the different conditions. Moreover, our data clearly support the notion that the iron deficiency response includes a hierarchy for iron allocation within organelles in C. reinhardtii. Importantly, deletion of a bifunctional alcohol and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ADH1), which is induced under low iron based on the proteomic data, attenuates the remodeling of the photosynthetic machinery in response to iron deficiency, and at the same time stimulates expression of stress-related proteins such as NDA2, LHCSR3, and PGRL1. This finding provides evidence that the coordinated regulation of bioenergetics pathways and iron deficiency response is sensitive to the cellular and chloroplast metabolic and/or redox status, consistent with systems approach data. Molecular &

BackgroundOleaginous microalgae are promising production hosts for the sustainable generation of lipid-based bioproducts and as bioenergy carriers such as biodiesel. Transcriptomics of the lipid accumulation phase, triggered efficiently by nitrogen starvation, is a valuable approach for the identification of gene targets for metabolic engineering.ResultsAn explorative analysis of the detailed transcriptional response to different stages of nitrogen availability was performed in the oleaginous green alga Monoraphidium neglectum. Transcript data were correlated with metabolic data for cellular contents of starch and of different lipid fractions. A pronounced transcriptional down-regulation of photosynthesis became apparent in response to nitrogen starvation, whereas glucose catabolism was found to be up-regulated. An in-depth reconstruction and analysis of the pathways for glycerolipid, central carbon, and starch metabolism revealed that distinct transcriptional changes were generally found only for specific steps within a metabolic pathway. In addition to pathway analyses, the transcript data were also used to refine the current genome annotation. The transcriptome data were integrated into a database and complemented with data for other microalgae which were also subjected to nitrogen starvation. It is available at https://tdbmn.cebitec.uni-bielefeld.de.ConclusionsBased on the transcriptional responses to different stages of nitrogen availability, a model for triacylglycerol and lipid hyperaccumulation is proposed, which involves transcriptional induction of thioesterases, differential regulation of lipases, and a re-routing of the central carbon metabolism. Over-expression of distinct thioesterases was identified to be a potential strategy to increase the oleaginous phenotype of M. neglectum, and furthermore specific lipases were identified as potential targets for future metabolic engineering approaches.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13068-017-0882-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.