Integrative systems approach for the study of gene expression regulatory networks related to biomass production in microalgae

Abstract

The socioeconomicand environmental challenges associated with the use of fossil fuels and the increase onglobal energy demand and air and water pollutants can be faced through the development of sustainableproduction of clean energy and chemicals. The integration of microalgaebasedbioremediation and production ofrenewable biomass appears as a promising sustainable path for the production of bioenergy and chemicals.Despite the advances in microalgae cultivation, the generation of biomass for massive fuel and chemicalsproduction is still limiting. Therefore, a better understanding on how changes of environmental factors, such ascarbon source, nutrients and light affect microalgae biomass composition and accumulation is necessary.External abiotic stimuli (e.g., temperature, light, CO2) can induce phenotypic alterations through changes in theunderlying gene regulatory networks (e.g., transcriptional profile, network rewiring). The identification of thecomponents of gene regulatory networks (GRNs), including cis and transregulatoryelements, and theconcomitant quantification of gene transcripts, proteins and metabolites in a time resolved manner is of crucial importance to understand the actual regulatory network structure and its dynamic behavior. Thus, in the presentproposal, we aim to generate and to integrate multiomicsdata in a timeresolvedsystems biology framework toelucidate, in the microalgae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, GRNs related to the control of cellular responses tonitrogen deprivation and salt stress under photoautotrophic and mixotrophic conditions. This approach will allowus to uncover biological and regulatory subnetworksresponsible for the control of biomass production andaccumulation of chemicals of biotechnological interest. The data generated will be useful for theoretical modelingand simulations and it will serve as the basis for the development of metabolic engineering and synthetic biologyapplications in microalgae, with possibilities to be extended to land plants and yeast strains in the future. (AU)