''Monoraphidium neglectum'' is a single-cell

green alga The green algae (singular: green alga) are a group consisting of the Prasinodermophyta and its unnamed sister which contains the Chlorophyta and Charophyta/Streptophyta. The land plants (Embryophytes) have emerged deep in the Charophyte alga as ...

of the family

Selenastraceae Selenastraceae is a family of green algae in the order Sphaeropleales.See the NCBI The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is part of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), a branch of the National Institutes ...

. There is interest in using ''M. neglectum'' for the production of

biofuels Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (E ...

because it can accumulate large quantities (up to 33 % of cell dry weight) of triacylglycerides (TAGs). In 2013, a draft nuclear, mitochondrial, and chloroplast genome was published with an estimated nuclear size of 68 Mb and approximately 16,761 genes. The nuclear genome is likely

diploid Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respectively ...

. The mitochondrial genome of ''M. neglectum'' is 96 kb, which is twice as large as ''

Nannochloropsis gaditana ''Nannochloropsis'' is a genus of algae comprising six known species. The genus in the current taxonomic classification was first termed by Hibberd (1981). The species have mostly been known from the marine environment but also occur in fresh and ...

'' and nearly six times larger than the green alga '' Chlamydomonas reinhardtii'', but contains fewer genes. A nuclear transformation technique has been established for ''M. neglectum'' using electrotransformation as the method of DNA delivery. The strategy described in this study, including a pretreatment step to weaken the cell wall, might inspire future studies with other microalgae also aiming at stable nuclear genetic transformation using electrotransformation. The transcriptome of ''M. neglectum'' has been sequenced using Illumina HiSeq technology. Using a poly-A fishing and genome-guided approach, the transcriptome was assembled into 20,751 genes (i. e., loci). The dataset encompasses a time-course experiment under conditions of both, high TAG accumulation and subsequent TAG degradation. TAG accumulation and degradation were induced by nitrogen removal (-N conditions) and nitrogen resupply (NR conditions). In total, the transcriptome was sequenced at 12 time points (t0, 7x -N, 4x NR), yielding a comprehensive and high-quality dataset. The raw data (100 nt paired-end reads) has been deposited at

SRA SRA may refer to: * SRA0 to SRA4, standard paper sizes defined by ISO 217 * Satanic ritual abuse * SRa or SRA, a type of semiregular variable star * Senior Airman (SrA), a US Air Force rank * Septic Reserve Area, for a septic drain field * The Nat ...

under the SRA Study accession numbe
SRP112537
The processed data is available at http://tdbmn.cebitec.uni-bielefeld.de, at which direct gene and BLAST search enable for data mining and to investigate the expression patterns of target genes under autotrophic -N and NR conditions. It is furthermore possible to compare the expression patterns of target genes of ''M. neglectum'' with those of other microalgae which were also subjected to -N conditions to induce TAG accumulation.

References

External links

{{Taxonbar, from=Q30595032 Sphaeropleales