Characterization of Nannochloropsis oceanica strains over-expressing Rieske Fe-S and SBPase to enhance photosynthesis

The world is facing increasing global population that will increase food and energy demands that the current resources cannot meet. There is the need to look for new and renewable sources that can help to sustain the future demands. One of this system can be industrial cultivation of microalgae but it needs improvement in light exploitation and in productivity of the interesting strains. Genetic engineering can have a role in this by tuning photosynthetic activity. With the purpose of improving photosynthesis in N. oceanica, we investigated the effects of overexpression of Rieske Fe-S subunit of cyt b6f and of sedoheptulose bisphosphatase enzyme. We successfully obtained overexpressing strain for both proteins through the HR system we used. Photosynthetic parameter and oxygen production analysis showed that overexpression of these two proteins can have either neutral or negative effects. Biomass productivity in SBPase overexpressing lines showed no changes. These results indicate that these two proteins are not good candidates for improving photosynthesis through overexpression in N. oceanica and more research is needed.