The focus of this project is the study of four novel cAMP-dependant kinases recently discovered employing a systems biological approach [1] which have proven to be involved in the stress adaption of C hlamydomonas reinhardtii to cold and nitrogen starvation stresses, strong inductors of sugars and lipids accumulation in green microalgae. To reach our goal we will overexpress and repress C KIN2, C KIN3, snRK2.3, and snRK3.1 cAMP-dependant kinases. The strain-engineering step will provide us the tools for studying the role of these kinases in a broad range of environmental situations through a classical phenotyping, but also its specific targets by specialized in vitro and in vivo analyses. The phenotiping of the engineered strains will provide information of the efficiency of abiotic stress mimicking for a more efficient production of biofuels. Nowadays, stressing algae cultures is a necessary and limiting step for inducing the accumulation of sugars or lipids. The use of algae strains with our candidate kinases attached to an inducible promoter would reduce production costs while increasing the strains with our candidate kinases attached to an inducible promoter would reduce production costs while increasing the efficiency, making this a reliable and pofitable technology.


To achieve this objective, the C hlamy4Future Research Team is a young, dynamic and multidisciplinary team that includes physiologists, molecular biologists, systems biologists, culture phenotyping, microalgae biotechnology expertises, as well as the interest of industry stakeholders (e.g. AQUALGAE).