Algae could replace plants as a source of medicinal compounds
Yuan YL, Dai JL, Xiao L, Jiang JG
Crispr
The essential oils, resins, and medicinal compounds that come from slow-growing plants like yew trees or wormwood might soon be brewed instead in tanks of fast-growing algae, easing pressure on wild plant populations harvested for those same chemicals.
Terpenoids are natural chemicals found in plants that give us things like medicines, fragrances, and flavors, but growing enough plants or chemically synthesizing these compounds at scale is slow and messy. Researchers are engineering algae, tiny photosynthetic organisms, to make these compounds instead, because algae already have plant-like internal machinery for building complex molecules. This review rounds up the tricks scientists are using, from tweaking algae's internal chemical pathways to pairing them with other microbes, to make this algae-as-factory approach work better.
Key Findings
Microalgae possess plant-like subcellular structures and regulatory mechanisms that give them an edge over bacteria and yeast for producing structurally complex terpenoids
Key engineering strategies include MEP/MVA pathway regulation, gene expression optimization, subcellular compartmentalization, and cultivation process intensification
Emerging tools like CRISPR/Cas, microalgae-microorganism co-culture, and artificial intelligence are being applied to overcome current production bottlenecks
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists are turning microscopic algae into living factories that produce valuable plant compounds called terpenoids, which are used in medicines, flavors, and fragrances but are hard to extract or synthesize by conventional means.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Advances in engineering microalgae for heterologous terpenoid synthesis: A review.
Terpenoids are a class of natural products widely distributed in living organisms, with isoprene as their fundamental structural unit. However, traditional plant extraction and chemical synthesis m...
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