Targeted delivery of fluorogenic peptide aptamers into live microalgae by femtosecond laser photoporation at single-cell resolution.

ABSTRACT: Microalgae-based metabolic engineering has been proven effective for producing valuable substances such as food supplements, pharmaceutical drugs, biodegradable plastics, and biofuels in the past decade. The ability to accurately visualize and quantify intracellular metabolites in live microalgae is essential for efficient metabolic engineering, but remains a major challenge due to the lack of characterization methods. Here we demonstrate it by synthesizing fluorogenic peptide aptamers with specific binding affinity to a target metabolite and delivering them into live microalgae by femtosecond laser photoporation at single-cell resolution. As a proof-of-principle demonstration of our method, we use it to characterize Euglena gracilis, a photosynthetic unicellular motile microalgal species,

SUBMITTER: Maeno T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5974127 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature