OCEAN ALGAE TO EAT CO2, BE BIOFUELS

Decoded algae could aid biofuel, climate work
David Perlman, April 10, 2009 (San Francisco Chronicle)

"Scientists…have decoded the genes of two widely varied species of ocean-dwelling algae, finding promising evidence of their ability to resist global climate change and clues to new sources of biofuels for an energy-short world.

"The algae are called Micromonas, and they are among the vast and varied tribe of microscopic ocean plants whose evolutionary ancestors were among the very first organisms that populated the Earth, more than 3 billion years ago…The California researchers and an international team of colleagues were led by Alexandra Z. Worden, a marine microbiologist and ecologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, and Igor V. Grigoriev, a geneticist at the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek…"

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"The algae came from the South Pacific Ocean off New Caledonia and the cold choppy waters of the English Channel. At first, the tiny one-celled plants were thought to be members of an identical species, but careful work found that the two widely separated varieties shared 90 percent of their genes - meaning they are in fact two distinct species…"

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"Marine algae are known for their ability to take up large quantities of carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas in global warming, and release copious amounts of oxygen…But the Micromonas cells - each 50 times smaller than a human hair - appear to do it best of all, which makes understanding their gene structure particularly important to researchers.

"Studying the sequence of the 10,000 genes in the cells of these algae should help scientists learn just how evolution has made them so powerful in sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and surviving the increasing acidity of the oceans due to global warming…And probing the genetic basis of the starches and fats contained in the bodies of the algae…could go a long way toward understanding their biology and their potential adaptation in developing new sources of biofuels to replace the fossil fuels that are now the major cause of climate change."