Chromochloris zofingiensis data now available on Phytozome

Chromochloris zofingiensis is a unicellular green alga in the class Chlorophyceae, and is closely related to the model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Interest in C. zofingiensis derives in part from its ability to accumulate large amounts of triacylglycerols in cytoplasmic lipid bodies, which gives it promising commercial potential as a biofuel feedstock. Additionally, C. zofingiensis is capable of producing large quantities of high-value molecules such as the carotenoid astaxanthin. Research on C. zofingiensis provides insight into the green lineage, regulation of metabolism, and the biosynthesis of astaxanthin. Creation of the assembly involved short Illumina reads, long PacBio reads, and whole genome restriction fragment length optical mapping. C. zofingiensis has a compact ~58 Mbp genome with 19 chromosomes and ~15,000 protein-coding genes.

Reference Publication:
Melissa S. Roth, Shawn J. Cokus, Sean D. Gallaher, Andreas Walter, David Lopez, Erika Erickson, Benjamin Endelman, Daniel Westcott, Carolyn A. Larabell, Sabeeha S. Merchant, Matteo Pellegrini, and Krishna K. Niyogi, Chromosome-level genome assembly and transcriptome of the green alga Chromochloris zofingiensis illuminates astaxanthin production Published online before print May 8, 2017, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1619928114 PNAS May 8, 2017

Project Landing Page:
http://genomes.mcdb.ucla.edu/Chromochloris/index.html

Data Available on Phytozome:
https://phytozome.jgi.doe.gov/Czofingiensis_erhttp://genomes.mcdb.ucla.edu/Chromochloris/index.html