Metabolic Engineering of Microalgae for Sustainable Bioproduction: Successes, Limits, and Future Perspectives

Dear Colleagues,

Microalgae are a heterogenic group of microorganisms able to convert inorganic carbon into sugars, producing oxygen as a side product by exploiting photosynthesis. Microalgae are responsible for more than half of the photosynthesis processes on Earth, and they can play a central role in sustainable development required by Agenda 2030 thanks to their extraordinary nutritional properties and ability to absorb atmospheric CO₂ to mitigate climate change. Microalgae also have the potential to provide high-nutrient low-cost food, especially in those countries whose geo-economic conditions do not allow the intensive use of traditional agriculture. The possibility of growing microalgae using wastewater and flue gases by exploiting non-arable lands in nearby photobioreactors is one of microalgae’s enormous advantages. It is no wonder that microalgae are currently considered a concrete alternative to plants in producing food and, to a lesser extent, energy. Nevertheless, they are promising solar-driven cell factories for producing a considerable variety of metabolites or high-value bioproducts. The scientific community is constantly working to overcome the present limitations, many of which have been successfully solved. The abundance of genomes for new species, advanced genomic manipulation techniques, and pioneering synthetic biology approaches results in excellent metabolite production using microalgae as a cell factory.

I am pleased to invite contributions to this Biology Special Issue entitled “Metabolic Engineering of Microalgae for Sustainable Bioproduction: Successes, Limits, and Future Perspectives”. The scope of this Special Issue is to collect original research, reviews, or short communications regarding the use of microalgae as a bio-factory for producing high-value products. The use of microalgae as a cell factory will be covered in-depth. Successful metabolic engineering approaches and solutions to constraints are welcome.

Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Microalgae synthetic biology, new manipulable species, or new techniques.
• Microalgae used for the production of bio-products.
• Increasing metabolite production or microalgal productivity.
• New techniques to break down cultivation costs: from PBR to media.
• Use of microalgae for phytoremediation.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Federico Perozeni
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biology is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• microalgae
• metabolic engineering
• synthetic biology
• bio-products
• high-value products
• bio-factory
• bio-refinery
• phytoremediation