ArticlePlant biotechnology journal2019
Engineering the unicellular alga Phaeodactylum tricornutum for high-value plant triterpenoid production.
Article in Plant biotechnology journal, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 123 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analysis of RNA-Seq datasets allows a better understanding of P. tricornutum cellular biology, a requirement to improve the production of Biologics.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- The Mevalonate Pathway: Innovations, Applications, and Challenges in Biotechnology with Emphasis on Fungal Biology.Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Synthetic Biology and Metabolic Engineering of Microalgae for Sustainable Lipid and Terpenoid Production: An Updated Perspective.Plant biotechnology journal · 2026Review
- Real-Time Tracking of Intracellular Prenyl Phosphate Pools in the Marine DiatomACS synthetic biology · 2026Article
- Review
- Metabolic engineering for improved heterologous pinene production in the chloroplast of Phaeodactylum tricornutum.Microbial cell factories · 2026Article
- Metabolic engineering of Phaeodactylum tricornutum for heterologous production of the plant triterpenoid friedelin.Microbial cell factories · 2025Article
- The marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum as a versatile bioproduction chassis: Current progress, challenges, and perspectives.Plant communications · 2025Review
- A new tool for engineering Phaeodactylum tricornutum: the METE promoter drives both high expression and BThe Plant journal : for cell and molecular biology · 2025Article
- Progress and prospects in metabolic engineering approaches for isoprenoid biosynthesis in microalgae.Biotechnology for biofuels and bioproducts · 2025Review
- Remodeling of the terpenoid metabolism during prolonged phosphate depletion in the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum.Journal of phycology · 2025Article
- Characterization of the VOC Promoter That Is Active Under Low-Salinity Conditions in the DiatomMarine drugs · 2025Article
- Aromatic Amino Acids: Exploring Microalgae as a Potential Biofactory.Biotech (Basel (Switzerland)) · 2025Review
- Exploiting microalgal diversity for sterol production.Frontiers in plant science · 2025Review
- Metabolic response to a heterologous poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) pathway in Phaeodactylum tricornutum.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2024Article
- Genome-Wide Mapping of Autonomously Replicating Sequences in the Marine Diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum.Marine biotechnology (New York, N.Y.) · 2024Article
- Cinnamaldehyde in Focus: Antimicrobial Properties, Biosynthetic Pathway, and Industrial Applications.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Determination of Pentacyclic Triterpenoids in Plant Biomass by Porous Graphitic Carbon Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Genetic Engineering of Microalgae for Secondary Metabolite Production: Recent Developments, Challenges, and Future Prospects.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2022Review
- Recent Progress on Systems and Synthetic Biology of Diatoms for Improving Algal Productivity.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Plant triterpenoids constitute a diverse class of organic compounds that play a major role in development, plant defence and environmental interaction. Several triterpenes have demonstrated potential as pharmaceuticals. One example is betulin, which has shown promise as a pharmaceutical precursor for the treatment of certain cancers and HIV. Major challenges for triterpenoid commercialization include their low production levels and their cost-effective purification from the complex mixtures present in their natural hosts. Therefore, attempts to produce these compounds in industrially relevant microbial systems such as bacteria and yeasts have attracted great interest. Here, we report the production of the triterpenes betulin and its precursor lupeol in the photosynthetic diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, a unicellular eukaryotic alga. This was achieved by introducing three plant enzymes in the microalga: a Lotus japonicus oxidosqualene cyclase and a Medicago truncatula cytochrome P450 along with its native reductase. The introduction of the L. japonicus oxidosqualene cyclase perturbed the mRNA expression levels of the native mevalonate and sterol biosynthesis pathway. The best performing strains were selected and grown in a 550-L pilot-scale photobioreactor facility. To our knowledge, this is the most extensive pathway engineering undertaken in a diatom and the first time that a sapogenin has been artificially produced in a microalga, demonstrating the feasibility of the photo-bio-production of more complex high-value, metabolites in microalgae.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.