Transformation of diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum by electroporation and establishment of inducible selection marker.

Highly efficient transformation of the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum by multi-pulse electroporation.

A highly efficient nuclear transformation method was established for the pennate diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum using an electroporation system that drives multi-sequence pulses to introduce foreign DNAs into the cells. By optimizing pulse conditions, the diatom cells can be transformed without removing rigid silica-based cell walls, and high transformation efficiency (about 4,500 per 10(8) c...

Identification of the UMP synthase gene by establishment of uracil auxotrophic mutants and the phenotypic complementation system in the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum.

Uridine-5'-monophosphate synthase (UMPS), the critical step of the de novo pyrimidine biosynthesis pathway, which is a housekeeping plastid process in higher plants, was investigated in a marine diatom, the most crucial primary producer in the marine environment. A mutagenesis using an alkylation agent, N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea, was carried out to the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum. Cells...

Genome properties of the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum.

Diatoms are a ubiquitous class of microalgae of extreme importance for global primary productivity and for the biogeochemical cycling of minerals such as silica. However, very little is known about diatom cell biology or about their genome structure. For diatom researchers to take advantage of genomics and post-genomics technologies, it is necessary to establish a model diatom species. Phaeodac...

Development of molecular tools in the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum

Investigations on functional aspects of secondary endocytobiosis using the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum as a model organism Dissertation Zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Naturwissenschaften

Diatoms and a variety of other algae evolved by secondary endocytobiosis, i.e. by uptake of a eukaryotic alga into a eukaryotic host cell and the subsequent transformation of the endosymbiont into an organelle. Due to this explicit evolutionary history diatoms possess plastids bound by four membranes. Nucleus encoded plastid preproteins in diatoms have N-terminal bipartite presequences consisti...