Microalgae Synthesize Hydrocarbons from Long-Chain Fatty Acids via a Light-Dependent Pathway
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Microalgae are considered a promising platform for the production of lipid-based biofuels. While oil accumulation pathways are intensively researched, the possible existence of a microalgal pathways converting fatty acids into alka(e)nes has received little attention. Here, we provide evidence that such a pathway occurs in several microalgal species from the green and the red lineages. In Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Chlorophyceae), a C17 alkene, n-heptadecene, was detected in the cell pellet and the headspace of liquid cultures. The Chlamydomonas alkene was identified as 7-heptadecene, an isomer likely formed by decarboxylation of cis-vaccenic acid. Accordingly, incubation of intact Chlamydomonas cells with per-deuterated D31-16:0 (palmitic) acid yielded D31-18:0 (stearic) acid, D29-18:1 (oleic and cis-vaccenic) acids, and D29-heptadecene. These findings showed that loss of the carboxyl group of a C18 monounsaturated fatty acid lead to heptadecene formation. Amount of 7-heptadecene varied with growth phase and temperature and was strictly dependent on light but was not affected by an inhibitor of photosystem II. Cell fractionation showed that approximately 80% of the alkene is localized in the chloroplast. Heptadecane, pentadecane, as well as 7- and 8-heptadecene were detected in Chlorella variabilis NC64A (Trebouxiophyceae) and several Nannochloropsis species (Eustigmatophyceae). In contrast, Ostreococcus tauri (Mamiellophyceae) and the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum produced C21 hexaene, without detectable C15-C19 hydrocarbons. Interestingly, no homologs of known hydrocarbon biosynthesis genes were found in the Nannochloropsis, Chlorella, or Chlamydomonas genomes. This work thus demonstrates that microalgae have the ability to convert C16 and C18 fatty acids into alka(e)nes by a new, light-dependent pathway.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".