Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Red Sea Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.
Elife. 2019 Jul 18;8:e45292. doi: 10.7554/eLife.45292.
Coral reefs are some of the most important and ecologically diverse marine environments. At the base of the reef ecosystem are dinoflagellate algae, which live symbiotically within coral cells. Efforts to understand the relationship between alga and coral have been greatly hampered by the lack of an appropriate dinoflagellate genetic transformation technology. By making use of the plasmid-like fragmented chloroplast genome, we have introduced novel genetic material into the dinoflagellate chloroplast genome. We have shown that the introduced genes are expressed and confer the expected phenotypes. Genetically modified cultures have been grown for 1 year with subculturing, maintaining the introduced genes and phenotypes. This indicates that cells continue to divide after transformation and that the transformation is stable. This is the first report of stable chloroplast transformation in dinoflagellate algae.
珊瑚礁是最重要和生态最多样化的海洋环境之一。在珊瑚礁生态系统的基础上是甲藻藻类，它们与珊瑚细胞共生。由于缺乏适当的甲藻遗传转化技术，对藻类和珊瑚之间关系的研究受到了极大的阻碍。通过利用质粒样的碎片化叶绿体基因组，我们已经将新的遗传物质引入到甲藻叶绿体基因组中。我们已经表明，引入的基因被表达，并赋予了预期的表型。经过传代培养，遗传修饰的培养物已经生长了 1 年，同时保持了引入的基因和表型。这表明转化后细胞继续分裂，转化是稳定的。这是甲藻藻类中稳定的叶绿体转化的第一个报道。
