INSIGHT INTO CRISPR SYSTEM IN EUKARYOTIC MICROALGAE, A REVIEW

Abstract

Microalgae are more than ever of paramount importance: nutrition, cosmetic, energy, biotechnology tools … Wisely used CRISPR/Cas9 technology can help industries to overcome some issues and increase production yield of some valuable compounds. However, the following review shows that it is too early for both routine and industrial applications. Different transfections techniques were applied, nevertheless, inside the same laboratory different electroporation devices and conditions have been used. Moreover, genomic editing efficiency were often too low. In order to define which technique is the best suited for each microalgae it is urgent to lead some studies comparing the CRISPR mediated genome editing upon different transfection techniques and conditions. This review highlights that the scientific community needs to set for each microalgae the right protocol to follow and be able to compare the results from one laboratory to another. Finally, some techniques were not tested in order to introduce the CRISPR technology inside eukaryotic microalgae and increase the genome-editing yield. In that sense recombinant Cas9 or CPF1 coupled to cell penetrating peptides or gold nanoparticles as well as tunable expression vectors (optogenetic, chemically induced etc…) could be very interesting to develop.