High-value bioproducts from microalgae: Strategies and progress

Abstract

Microalgae have been considered as alternative sustainable resources for high-value bioproducts such as lipids (especially triacylglycerides [TAGs]), polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), and carotenoids, due to their relatively high photosynthetic efficiency, no arable land requirement, and ease of scale-up. It is of great significance to exploit microalgae for the production of high-value bioproducts. How to improve the content or productivity of specific bioproducts has become one of the most urgent challenges. In this review, we will describe high-value bioproducts from microalgae and their biosynthetic pathways (mainly for lipids, PUFAs, and carotenoids). Recent progress and strategies for the enhanced production of bioproducts from microalgae are also described in detail, and these strategies take advantages of optimized cultivation conditions with abiotic stress, chemical stress (addition of metabolic precursors, phytohormones, chemical inhibitors, and chemicals inducing oxidative stress response), and molecular approaches such as metabolic engineering, transcriptional engineering, and gene disruption strategies (mainly RNAi, antisense RNA, miRNA-based knockdown, and CRISPR/Cas9).

Keywords:

• Microalgae
• high-value bioproducts
• omics
• abiotic stress
• metabolic engineering
• gene knockout
• carotenoid
• lipid
• LC-PUFA

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Foundation of China (31571773), Key Project of Natural Foundation of Guangdong Province (2014A030311020), Guangdong Province Science and Technology plan project (2016A010105002), Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Ocean and Fishery Science and Technology to promote a special (A20161A11) China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M630950 to M.H.L), and National Science Foundation [MCB0950242 to J.H.Z]. This work was also supported by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M630950).