Establishing Oleaginous Microalgae Research Models for Consolidated Bioprocessing of Solar Energy - Biotechnology in China: Biofuels and Bioenergy - page 77

Fig. 3 The concept of Syn-Nanno for CBP-SE

5 Promises of Functional Genomics

Systems biology approaches based on functional dissection and engineering of
whole cellular components, e.g. genomics, transcriptomes, proteomes and meta-
bolomes, have ushered in the era of cellular network manipulation. For example,
the second generation sequencing technologies, including 454, Solexa and SOLiD,
have dramatically reduced sequencing cost while increased the data yield, both by
2-3 orders of magnitude, so that not only genomes and transcriptomes but also
metagenomes can now be sampled with an unprecedented depth and accuracy.
Such high throughput, genome-wide technologies, when applied to wild oleagi-
nous microalgae and its associated ecosystems, could help understand, at single-
cell, population and community levels, the integrated blueprint of genomes in
structure, function and evolution, and further elucidate the cellular coordination of
gene expression and the network of multiple signaling pathways, and finally identify
the engineering targets for trait improvement. Experiences in addressing these
fundamental questions could be gained from the other unicellular eukaryotic algae
whose genomes have been unveiled, such as the green algae C. reinhardtii [ 13 ],
Chlorella variabilis [ 19 ], Micromonas [ 20 ], Ostreococcus tauri and Ostrecoccus
lucimarinus [ 21 ], the red algae Cyanidioschyzon merola [ 22 ], and the diatoms
Thalassiosira pseudonana [ 23 ] and Phaeodactylum tricornutum [ 24 ].
(1) Functional diversity of the genes, pathways and networks underlying lipid
production and related traits. In diatoms, the cells accumulate silicic acid and build