Abstract
Aquatic photosynthetic organisms have acquired unique CO2-concentrating mechanism (CCM) to maintain photosynthesis in aquatic environments, in which CO2 diffuses slower than in the air. Although CCM is assumed to be composed by many low-CO2 inducible gene products, cell membrane-bound inorganic carbon transporters have not been described in green algae. We have identified a plasma membrane-bound inorganic transporter LCI1 by characterizing a transgenic Chlamydomonas cells (Ohnishi, Plant Cell 2010). In addition, one of the low-CO2 inducible genes, LCIB/LCIC, was shown to be essential to CCM under air conditions (Yamano, PCP 2010). I would like to discuss about possibilities to support photosynthesis by over expression the CCM components in eukaryotic algae. In addition, changing of the metabolic pathway and to enhance the productivities in eukaryotic cells.
