SRA

Limited systems-level understanding of oil synthesis in wild oleaginous algae has hindered the development of microalgal feedstock. Nannochloropsis is a small unicellular microalgae widely distributed in oceans and fresh water. In many large-scale and pilot-scale outdoor cultivation facilities, Nannochloropsis strains have been found to be capable of robust growth when supplied with flue gases, naturally accumulating large quantities of oils in a stationary phase, and exhibiting resistance to environmental contaminants. The rich genomic resources, compact genomes, resistance to foreign DNA invasion, wide ecological adaptation, large collections of natural strains and the demonstrated ability to grow on a large scale suggested Nannochloropsis can serve as research models and platform strains for economical and scalable photosynthetic production of fuels and chemicals. To untangle the intricate genome-wide networks underlying the robust biomass accumulation and oil production in Nannochloropsis, we applied high-throughput mRNA-sequencing and reconstructed the structure and dynamics of the genome-wide functional network underlying robust microalgal triacylglycerol (TAG) production in Nannochloropsis oceanica, by tracking the genome-wide, single-base-resolutiontranscript change for the complete time-courses of nitrogen-depletion-induced TAG synthesis. Overall design: Nannochloropsis oceanica IMET1 cells were grown in liquid cultures under continuous light (approximately 50 µmol photons m-2 s-1) at 25? and aerated by bubbling with a mixture of 1.5% CO2 in air. Mid-logarithmic phase algal cells were collected and washed three times with axenic seawater. Equal numbers of cells were re-inoculated in nitrogen replete medium (Control condition or C, i.e. N+) and nitrogen deprived medium (N deficiency or N, i.e. N-) with 50µmol m-2 s-1 light intensity, respectively. Cell aliquots were collected for RNA isolation after being transferred to the designated conditions for 3h, 4h, 6h, 12h, 24h and 48h. Three biological replicates of algal cultures were established under each of the above “C” (i.e. N+) and “N” (i.e. N-) conditions, respectively. In total, 36 samples collected at six time points (3h,4h,6h,12h,24h and 48h) were used for mRNA-Seq library preparation and then submitted to Illumina HiSeq 2000 for sequencing.