RNAseq of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii during TAG accumulation

Christina S. Kim1, Nanette R. Boyle1, David Casero2, Bensheng Liu3, Christophe Benning3, Matteo Pellegrini2,4, and Sabeeha S. Merchant1,4

1) Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and 2) Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569 3) Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1319 4) Insitute of Genomics and Proteomics, UCLA

Despite widespread interest in the production of biofuels from algae, little is known about the regulatory mechanisms that induce triacylglycerol (TAG) accumulation. Nitrogen deprivation has been shown to cause TAG accumulation in a number of algae, including C. reinhardtii. We compared two media types, TAP and HSMA, to determine which results in a higher induction of lipid production during nitrogen starvation. We found that despite initially having higher induction in HSMA, after a 48 hour starvation period TAP had significantly higher fatty acid levels per cell. We also performed RNAseq of a timecourse of nitrogen starvation in TAP to determine mRNA abundance of the entire transcriptome at 0, 0.5, 2, 4, 8, 12, 24, and 48 hours. Genes significantly up/down regulated will be presented.

e-mail address of presenting author: nboyle@chem.ucla.edu