Microbiota are present everywhere in the biosphere. Can we employ them as indigenous “biosensors”, to diagnose and predict the health of their ecosystems? A joint research team from the Single-Cell ...

Efficient biological degradation of cellulosic biomass has been recognized as one major bottleneck in production of cellulosic liquid fuels or biogas, and as the one key step in the carbon cycle of bi...

Phytohormones are a class of signaling molecules that are produced intrinsically in plants. In higher plants, phytohormones are usually synthesized in one location and then transported to another loca...

Under stress conditions, microalgae can accumulate large quantities of oil, which can be converted to biodiesel. However, in microalgae, multiple forms of storage carbon products deprived from the pho...

Microalgae are promising feedstock for fuels and chemicals because many species possess the ability to grow rapidly and synthesize large amounts of storage neutral lipids from sunlight and carbon diox...

Microalgae are able to convert solar energy and carbon dioxide to energy storage compounds such as starch and lipids to produce food and biofuels. Therefore screening and engineering strains for highe...

Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCMs) have long been widely utilized to prevent and treat various diseases in China and many other countries. A “TCM preparation” (or “patented drug”) is characteriz...

Sterols are vital components of all eukaryotic cells. However, little is known about the roles, biosynthesis, and regulation of sterols in microalgae. A joint research team led by Qingdao Institute of...

Cellular heterogeneity that arises from stochastic expression of genes, proteins and metabolites is a fundamental principle of cell biology. However, mechanistic data are often masked in average value...

Photosynthetic microalgae are of interest world-wide as potential feedstock for fuels because of their high productivity of oil, high growth rate, tolerance of diverse environmental conditions and cap...