Starch metabolism in green algae

Abstract

Starch plays a central role in the life cycle as one of the principal sources of chemical energy. This polysaccharide accumulates in plastids in green algae and land plants, and both organisms have acquired various enzyme isoforms for each step of the metabolic pathway. Eukaryotic green microalgae present the critical photosynthetic functions as higher plants. However, due to the small size of their genome, gene redundancy is decreased, a feature that makes them an excellent model for investigating the properties of photosynthetic physiology. In the last decade, there has been an increasing demand for starch in many industrial processes, such as food, pharmaceutical, and bioethanol production. Thus, a better understanding of starch biosynthesis, in particular the structure-function relationship and regulatory properties of the enzymes involved in its production may provide a powerful tool for the planning of new strategies to increase plant biomass, as well as to improve the quality and quantity of this polymer.

Molecular mechanisms for photosynthetic carbon partitioning into storage neutral lipids in Nannochloropsis oceanica under nitrogen-depletion conditions

“…Moreover, for microalgae, carbon fixation and then allocation of the photosynthetic fixed carbon to lipid, carbohydrate and protein take place all within a cell. In green algae, starch (as main storage carbohydrates) synthesis and de novo fatty acid synthesis mainly take place in plastid [63], while TAG assembly seems to occur in plastid and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) [3]. In our model for N. oceanica, TAG synthesis was likely in plastid and ER [24], while the degradation of storage carbohydrates seems to occur in cytoplasm (Fig.…”

The Transition from Glycogen to Starch Metabolism in Cyanobacteria and Eukaryotes

“…Starch metabolism in green algae has been the topic of many detailed studies and has been extensively reviewed (Ball 1998(Ball , 2002Ball and Deschamps 2008;Busi et al 2013). Thus, we will not further review this topic in this chapter.…”

Microalgae, a Potential Natural Functional Food Source – a Review

“…Some Chlorella strains have a cell wall with a trilaminar (TLS) outer layer that contains algaenan, a resistant and non-hydrolysable biopolymer, while other strains have a cell wall with no TLS outer layer, but a high percentage of polysaccharides. In contrast, the Chlorophyta Dunaliella salina lacks a rigid cell wall [Busi et al, 2014;Oren, 2005, Chen et al, 2011.…”