| 초록 |
A unicellular green alga, Haematococcus pluvialis, has been focused as a microbial source of astaxanthin production. H. pluvialis accumulates the highest level of astaxanthin (up to 4%/g DCW) and seems to be a very promising source of natural astaxanthin. Astaxanthin is the most important from the biotechnological point of view, a high-value carotenoid which is used as a pigmentation source in fish aquaculture and a food supplement for humans has been suggested. A promising strategy for further improving the astaxanthin yield of H. pluvialis is genetic engineering of the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway. To date there have been no reports of a dominant selective transformation system for H. pluvialis. Agrobacterium tumefaciens, a soil bacteria, cause crown gall disease in a wide range of plants by transferring the T-DNA from its Ti plasmid to the genome of plants. A. tumefaciens is the trans-kindom gene transporter. We report transfer of T-DNA of A. tumefaciens carrying the genes coding for green fluorescent protein (gfp) and hygromycin phosphotransferase (hpt) to the nuclear genome of the H. pluvialis. We developed a simple genetic transformation protocol of this green alga by A. tumefaciens. |
