Isolation and characterization of a motility-defective mutant of Euglena gracilis

PeerJ

article

Shuki Muramatsu¹  Kohei Atsuji²  Koji Yamada²  Kazunari Ozasa⁴  Hideyuki Suzuki²  Takuto Takeuchi²  Yuka Hashimoto-Marukawa²  Yusuke Kazama⁵  Tomoko Abe⁵  Kengo Suzuki²  Osamu Iwata² 

[1] Department of Health Science, Showa Women’s University;euglena Co., Ltd.;Baton Zone Program;Bioengineering Laboratory, Cluster for Pioneering Research;RIKEN Nishina Center;Faculty of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Fukui Prefectural University

关键词: Euglena gracilis;    Motility defect;    Heavy-ion beam irradiation;    Microalgae;    Paramylon;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.10002

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Euglena gracilis is a green photosynthetic microalga that swims using its flagellum. This species has been used as a model organism for over half a century to study its metabolism and the mechanisms of its behavior. The development of mass-cultivation technology has led to E. gracilis application as a feedstock in various products such as foods. Therefore, breeding of E. gracilis has been attempted to improve the productivity of this feedstock for potential industrial applications. For this purpose, a characteristic that preserves the microalgal energy e.g., reduces motility, should be added to the cultivars. The objective of this study was to verify our hypothesis that E. gracilis locomotion-defective mutants are suitable for industrial applications because they save the energy required for locomotion. To test this hypothesis, we screened for E. gracilis mutants from Fe-ion-irradiated cell suspensions and established a mutant strain, M3−ZFeL, which shows defects in flagellum formation and locomotion. The mutant strain exhibits a growth rate comparable to that of the wild type when cultured under autotrophic conditions, but had a slightly slower growth under heterotrophic conditions. It also stores 1.6 times the amount of paramylon, a crystal of β-1,3-glucan, under autotrophic culture conditions, and shows a faster sedimentation compared with that of the wild type, because of the deficiency in mobility and probably the high amount of paramylon accumulation. Such characteristics make E. gracilis mutant cells suitable for cost-effective mass cultivation and harvesting.

【 授权许可】

CC BY