According to the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the continued global warming has increased the risk and impact on human survival.
The global warming caused by human activities is about 1℃ above the pre-industrial level, with a possible range of 0.8℃ to 1.2℃. From 2006 to 2015 alone, human activities caused global warming of 0.87℃. If the current heating rate is maintained, the average global warming will reach 1.5℃ from 2030 to 2052. (Robert et al., 2017; Wang Li et al., 2020)
The continued increase in global average temperature will lead to sea level rise, severe acidification of the oceans, and unbalanced heavy rainfall and severe droughts between regions, which in turn will seriously threaten the living environment of humans and even entire species, causing species loss and extinction and irreversible impacts on ecosystems. (Xu et al., 2022) The high photosynthetic efficiency and strong environmental eutrophication remediation make Phaeodactylum tricornutum a breakthrough point in this series of hot issues.
As a typical single-celled oil-producing diatom in the ocean, Phaeodactylum tricornutum is widely involved in biogeochemical cycles. Because of its high photosynthetic efficiency, short growth cycle, high lipid content, and its ability to absorb and utilize nutrients such as N/P, which cause eutrophication of seawater, and greenhouse gas CO2, it has become one of the hot research organisms for new energy and environmental management. (Monique et al., 2018)
On this basis, this project takes Phaeodactylum tricornutum, an excellent planktonic photosynthetic organism as the research object, in combination with the increasingly tense situation of the current climate and water ecological environment. By constructing engineered algae strains, their carbon sequestration capacity and nitrogen and phosphorus absorption capacity are greatly improved. Promising to effectively alleviate current environmental problems while achieving increased content of high economic value components such as lipids and fucoxanthin.
The research directions and findings of this project have great potential for development and can effectively mitigate climate problems. The transformed engineering algae strains can effectively absorb nitrogen and phosphorus elements in the water body, therefore alleviate marine water pollution, and play a positive role in restoring the ocean carbon cycle and mitigating climate change. At the same time, the engineered algae strains which absorb polluting elements in the water body can be used to extract high economic value components such as lipids and fucoxanthin after being artificially recovered, which can also contribute to the energy production and economic development of polluted sites.
However, our project still has some shortcomings. Nowadays, high production cost and low production efficiency due to immature culture technology are the key reasons which limit the industrialized culture of our project. In addition, the risk of escape of transgenic algae strains may also exist. After that, we will study these aspects in depth again, propose solutions and actively try to improve them.
We firmly believe that all this is just the beginning. The engineered algal strain of Phaeodactylum tricornutum transformed by this project has shown broad development prospects. In the future, we will continue to conduct in-depth research on this algal strain to exert its infinite potential.The task of environmental protection and restoration is arduous, but we will do our best to contribute to the global green transition. We believe that with our joint efforts, a beautiful world with blue sky, green space and clear water will eventually reappear.