Team:SZU-China

Abstract

Hydrogen energy, is of great potential in the future with its zero-emission and high-efficiency, especially in view of energy exhaustion and environment pollution nowadays. However, the fact that few efficient and environment-friendly methods for hydrogen production constrains its application. Therefore, our team develops a biological production way, using the green algae - Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Since the hydrogenase activity will be inhibited in absence of oxygen and the algae can't stop photosynthesis for a long time, we design a switch altering between 2 states in which light wavelength serves as the extraneous inducible factor. In specific alternation, we utilize miRNA targeting the expression of key protein in photosynthesis. That is, we can select the hydrogen-production switch by regulating miRNA. In our design, we focus on the Yeast-Two-Hybrid system and light-mediated fusion protein constructing a gene circuit where the microRNA can regulate the specific downstream protein expression, and finally allow algae to produce hydrogen. In this way, the intermittent blue light switch regulate the chlamydomonas produce constant hydrogen in efficiency.

What we are working on!

algae

Our project provides a new idea for hydrogen energy construction and gives a new solution for the algae pollution by using green algae.

miRNA

We designed an artificial miRNA which targeting D1 to provide the anerobic condition to produce hydrogen.

light-mediated

We build a light-mediated expression system for the miRNA and transform them into green algae to realize continuous hydrogen production.