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Time-resolved carotenoid profiling and transcriptomic analysis reveal mechanism of carotenogenesis for astaxanthin synthesis in the oleaginous green alga Chromochloris zofingiensis

BACKGROUND: Chromochloris zofingiensis is emerging as an industrially relevant alga given its robust growth for the production of lipids and astaxanthin, a value-added carotenoid with broad applications. Nevertheless, poor understanding of astaxanthin synthesis has limited engineering of this alga f...

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Autores principales: Zhang, Yu, Shi, Meicheng, Mao, Xuemei, Kou, Yaping, Liu, Jin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6913025/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31890015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-019-1626-1
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author Zhang, Yu
Shi, Meicheng
Mao, Xuemei
Kou, Yaping
Liu, Jin
author_facet Zhang, Yu
Shi, Meicheng
Mao, Xuemei
Kou, Yaping
Liu, Jin
author_sort Zhang, Yu
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Chromochloris zofingiensis is emerging as an industrially relevant alga given its robust growth for the production of lipids and astaxanthin, a value-added carotenoid with broad applications. Nevertheless, poor understanding of astaxanthin synthesis has limited engineering of this alga for rational improvements. RESULTS: To reveal the molecular mechanism underlying astaxanthin accumulation in C. zofingiensis, here we conducted an integrated analysis by combining the time-resolved transcriptomes and carotenoid profiling in response to nitrogen deprivation (ND). A global response was triggered for C. zofingiensis to cope with the ND stress. Albeit the little variation in total carotenoid content, individual carotenoids responded differentially to ND: the primary carotenoids particularly lutein and β-carotene decreased, while the secondary carotenoids increased considerably, with astaxanthin and canthaxanthin being the most increased ones. The carotenogenesis pathways were reconstructed: ND had little effect on the carbon flux to carotenoid precursors, but stimulated astaxanthin biosynthesis while repressing lutein biosynthesis, thereby diverting the carotenoid flux from primary carotenoids to secondary carotenoids particularly astaxanthin. Comparison between C. zofingiensis and Haematococcus pluvialis revealed the distinctive mechanism of astaxanthin synthesis in C. zofingiensis. Furthermore, potential bottlenecks in astaxanthin synthesis were identified and possible engineering strategies were proposed for the alga. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, these findings shed light on distinctive mechanism of carotenogenesis for astaxanthin biosynthesis in C. zofingiensis, identify key functional enzymes and regulators with engineering potential and will benefit rational manipulation of this alga for improving nutritional traits.
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spelling pubmed-69130252019-12-30 Time-resolved carotenoid profiling and transcriptomic analysis reveal mechanism of carotenogenesis for astaxanthin synthesis in the oleaginous green alga Chromochloris zofingiensis Zhang, Yu Shi, Meicheng Mao, Xuemei Kou, Yaping Liu, Jin Biotechnol Biofuels Research BACKGROUND: Chromochloris zofingiensis is emerging as an industrially relevant alga given its robust growth for the production of lipids and astaxanthin, a value-added carotenoid with broad applications. Nevertheless, poor understanding of astaxanthin synthesis has limited engineering of this alga for rational improvements. RESULTS: To reveal the molecular mechanism underlying astaxanthin accumulation in C. zofingiensis, here we conducted an integrated analysis by combining the time-resolved transcriptomes and carotenoid profiling in response to nitrogen deprivation (ND). A global response was triggered for C. zofingiensis to cope with the ND stress. Albeit the little variation in total carotenoid content, individual carotenoids responded differentially to ND: the primary carotenoids particularly lutein and β-carotene decreased, while the secondary carotenoids increased considerably, with astaxanthin and canthaxanthin being the most increased ones. The carotenogenesis pathways were reconstructed: ND had little effect on the carbon flux to carotenoid precursors, but stimulated astaxanthin biosynthesis while repressing lutein biosynthesis, thereby diverting the carotenoid flux from primary carotenoids to secondary carotenoids particularly astaxanthin. Comparison between C. zofingiensis and Haematococcus pluvialis revealed the distinctive mechanism of astaxanthin synthesis in C. zofingiensis. Furthermore, potential bottlenecks in astaxanthin synthesis were identified and possible engineering strategies were proposed for the alga. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, these findings shed light on distinctive mechanism of carotenogenesis for astaxanthin biosynthesis in C. zofingiensis, identify key functional enzymes and regulators with engineering potential and will benefit rational manipulation of this alga for improving nutritional traits. BioMed Central 2019-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC6913025/ /pubmed/31890015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-019-1626-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Zhang, Yu
Shi, Meicheng
Mao, Xuemei
Kou, Yaping
Liu, Jin
Time-resolved carotenoid profiling and transcriptomic analysis reveal mechanism of carotenogenesis for astaxanthin synthesis in the oleaginous green alga Chromochloris zofingiensis
title Time-resolved carotenoid profiling and transcriptomic analysis reveal mechanism of carotenogenesis for astaxanthin synthesis in the oleaginous green alga Chromochloris zofingiensis
title_full Time-resolved carotenoid profiling and transcriptomic analysis reveal mechanism of carotenogenesis for astaxanthin synthesis in the oleaginous green alga Chromochloris zofingiensis
title_fullStr Time-resolved carotenoid profiling and transcriptomic analysis reveal mechanism of carotenogenesis for astaxanthin synthesis in the oleaginous green alga Chromochloris zofingiensis
title_full_unstemmed Time-resolved carotenoid profiling and transcriptomic analysis reveal mechanism of carotenogenesis for astaxanthin synthesis in the oleaginous green alga Chromochloris zofingiensis
title_short Time-resolved carotenoid profiling and transcriptomic analysis reveal mechanism of carotenogenesis for astaxanthin synthesis in the oleaginous green alga Chromochloris zofingiensis
title_sort time-resolved carotenoid profiling and transcriptomic analysis reveal mechanism of carotenogenesis for astaxanthin synthesis in the oleaginous green alga chromochloris zofingiensis
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6913025/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31890015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-019-1626-1
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