Best Plant Synthetic Biology

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

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We chose the green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii because of its nontoxic attributes and compatibility.

• C. reinhardtii does not produce toxins
• C. reinhardtii has some similar properties as bacteria, making it easier to work with.
• C. reinhardtii has been the subject of experiments for decades and is known as a model organism.

Algae is an effective option because they pull the nitrogen and phosphorus out of the water needing only carbon dioxide as a carbon source. If grown in sunlight and in batches, it has the capability to be significantly more cost effective than more common methods, and algal systems have the possibility of removing other potential contaminants because of the proclivity of algae to act as a biological cleansing agent. It is able to do photosynthesis, so we can use the sun’s energy to power the pathways we want C. reinhardtii to do.

C. reinhardtii is a very good chassis for our project, as it has been used for genetic engineering before. C. reinhardtii has been the subject of experiments for decades, and is known as a model organism, which means a lot is known about it. It also has a cell wall, making it a good model for other algae and plants. A pathway also already existed in the microalgae to change nitrogen to ammonium. This provided a starting step for us to add a gene pathway that convert nitrogen to dinitrogen gas.

Check out our Contribution page for more details on the parts we created for C. reinhardtii

• We used a Neon Electroporator to transform the C. reinhardtii.
• We successfully electroporated C. reinhardtii with the PSR + Clover L2 construct.
• Transformants were plated on TAP + Kanamycin plates and TAP plates as a control.

>Successful colonies were obtained on the TAP + Kan plates, and emmited fluorescence from our Psr1+clover fusion protein.

Additionally we were able to transform C. reinhardtii with our nitrogen L2 construct as well, which we confirmed through Spectinomycin resistance and also fluorescence.