Team Wiki Background

An Algal Solution to CO2 and Global Warming

Exploring the overexpression of Mitochondrial Chaperonin 60 (CPN60C) in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

  • How do you feel about the weather of your last summer?
  • What may the elder people say when talking about the climate change in the past few decades?
  • Have people noticed? Do people care?
—
Click or press Enter
Illustration

Our Methodology

Our approach to mitigating global warming focuses on enhancing the heat resilience of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii by overexpressing the endogenous gene CPN60C, a mitochondrial chaperonin that belongs to the Heat Shock Protein 60 (HSP60) family (UniProtKB, I2FKQ9). Cpn60 proteins are highly conserved molecular chaperones that assist in protein folding in the mitochondria and protect cells against the accumulation of aberrant proteins, particularly under elevated temperatures (Malkeyeva, 2025; Gupta, 1995). In plants and algae, heat stress rapidly impairs mitochondrial and chloroplast function, reducing both respiratory efficiency and photosynthetic productivity (Singh, et al., 2024; Vera-Vives, et al., 2024). Since algal biomass productivity and photosynthesis are critical to sustainable carbon capture, engineering strains to withstand warming environments has direct relevance to global climate solutions (Allakhverdiev, 2008).

Building on this principle, we designed plasmids carrying the endogenous CPN60C gene and introduced them into multiple strains of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii via electroporation to generate transformed strains with elevated CPN60C expression. Our research combined wet-lab experiments with statistical modeling, employing several expression cassettes to evaluate survival and carbon capture. We also compared the CC-124 strain of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, which retains a complete cell wall, and the UVM-4 strain, which is cell wall-deficient, to assess how broadly this approach could be applied across hosts.

Looking ahead, we aim to expand this work by exploring how mitochondrial stress-response genes such as CPN60C can be harnessed to engineer algae capable of maintaining growth and carbon dioxide capture under climate-relevant stress.

References

  • Allakhverdiev, S. I., Kreslavski, V. D., Klimov, V. V., Los, D. A., Carpentier, R., & Mohanty, P. (2008). Heat stress: an overview of molecular responses in photosynthesis. Photosynthesis research, 98(1-3), 541–550. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-008-9331-0
  • Copernicus Climate Change Service. (2025, January 10). Global climate highlights 2024. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://climate.copernicus.eu/global-climate-highlights-2024
  • Gupta R. S. (1995). Evolution of the chaperonin families (Hsp60, Hsp10 and Tcp-1) of proteins and the origin of eukaryotic cells. Molecular microbiology, 15(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2958.1995.tb02216.x
  • Ho, S. H., Chen, C. Y., Lee, D. J., & Chang, J. S. (2011). Perspectives on microalgal CO2-emission mitigation systems—a review. Biotechnology advances, 29(2), 189-198.
  • Lindsey, R. (2023, August 22). Climate change: Global sea level. NOAA Climate.gov. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level
  • Malkeyeva, D., Kiseleva, E. V., & Fedorova, S. A. (2025). Heat shock proteins in protein folding and reactivation. Vavilovskii zhurnal genetiki i selektsii, 29(1), 7–14. https://doi.org/10.18699/vjgb-25-02
  • NASA. (n.d.). Ice sheets. In Climate Change: Vital signs of the planet. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/?intent=121
  • Singh, M. K., Shin, Y., Han, S., Ha, J., Tiwari, P. K., Kim, S. S., & Kang, I. (2024). Molecular Chaperonin HSP60: Current Understanding and Future Prospects. International journal of molecular sciences, 25(10), 5483. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25105483
  • UniProtKB entry I2FKQ9, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Cpn60C. Retrieved from https://www.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/I2FKQ9/entry
  • Vera-Vives, A. M., Novel, P., Zheng, K., Tan, S.-L., Schwarzländer, M., Alboresi, A., & Morosinotto, T. (2024). Mitochondrial respiration is essential for photosynthesis-dependent ATP supply of the plant cytosol. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.01.09.574809
  • World Meteorological Organization. (2025, March 19). WMO report documents spiralling weather and climate impacts. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/wmo-report-documents-spiralling-weather-and-climate-impacts
  • *The illustration image of global warming was generated with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).