Plants have evolved diverse strategies to cope with herbivory, including overcompensation, a phenomenon where stress-induced endoreduplication enhances cell size and metabolic capacity. This study investigates whether a genetic mechanism analogous to the one found in plants is present in algae and whether inducing endoreduplication in green algae can enhance biomass and lipid production for biofuel applications. BLAST searches, followed by gene homology parametrization, identified the presence of a gene similar to the one found in higher plants, in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Chlorella vulgaris. Two experiments were conducted: in the first, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii wild-type and knockout strains were exposed to salt-stress and non-stress conditions, with cell area, density, and ploidy levels via flow cytometry assessed. In the second, Chlorella vulgaris was subjected to the same treatments, with additional neutral lipid profiling after 30 days. Results showed salt stress induced cell cycle arrest and increased cell size in baseline cultures, with a shift from haploidy to polyploidy as confirmed by flow cytometry. Lipid profiling revealed enhanced neutral lipid accumulation in C. vulgaris by approximately 3x under salt stress. These findings suggest that green algae possess a pathway analogous to plant endoreduplication, offering promising strategies for optimizing biofuel production through enhanced lipid yields.
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