Open Access

REVIEW

Metabolic engineering and genome editing strategies for enhanced lipid production in microalgae

by ANJANI DEVI CHINTAGUNTA¹, SAMUDRALA PRASHANT JEEVAN KUMAR², NUNE SATYA SAMPATH KUMAR^1,*

1 Department of Biotechnology, Vignan’s Foundation Science, Technology and Research, Vadlamudi, Andhra Pradesh, 522213, India
2 ICAR-Directorate of Floricultural Research, Pune, 412307, India

* Corresponding Author: NUNE SATYA SAMPATH KUMAR. Email:

BIOCELL 2024, 48(8), 1181-1195. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2024.050540

Received 09 February 2024; Accepted 14 June 2024; Issue published 02 August 2024

Abstract

Depleting global petroleum reserves and skyrocketing prices coupled with succinct supply have been a grave concern, which needs alternative sources to conventional fuels. Oleaginous microalgae have been explored for enhanced lipid production, leading towards biodiesel production. These microalgae have short life cycles, require less labor, and space, and are easy to scale up. Triacylglycerol, the primary source of lipids needed to produce biodiesel, is accumulated by most microalgae. The article focuses on different types of oleaginous microalgae, which can be used as a feedstock to produce biodiesel. Lipid biosynthesis in microalgae occurs through fatty acid synthesis and TAG synthesis approaches. In-depth discussions are held regarding other efficient methods for enhancing fatty acid and TAG synthesis, regulating TAG biosynthesis bypass methods, blocking competing pathways, multigene approach, and genome editing. The most potential targets for gene transformation are hypothesized to be a malic enzyme and diacylglycerol acyltransferase while lowering phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase activity is reported to be advantageous for lipid synthesis.

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Keywords

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