Program

Research into dinoflagellate biology has now entered the post-genomics era, following the recent completion of the Symbiodium kawagutii whole genome sequences. The thorough exploitation of these resources will require the development of molecular tools to analyze and modulate the function of genes in vivo. Here we attempted to use a published silicon carbide whiskers protocol in addition to using standard algal biolistics and electroporation transformation protocols to transform Symbiodium kawagutii using modified CaMV 35S promoter with Basta as the selectable marker.  As a result, we saw the green fluorescence from Symbiodinium cell, but we could not conclude that this transformation succeeded, as the dying cells could generate the spontaneous fluorescence. We also observed the expression of GUS gene in the transformed cells. Interestingly,  we also found that the cells treated by Basta have higher fluorescence intensity than normal cells. To date, the biggest difficulty is how to pick the transformed cells out.

In the following work, we will try to sort the transformed dinoflagellates marked by fluorescent protein using the Flow cytometry. Besides, we are constructing the vector containing eYFP gene which can separate obviously with the Chloroplast fluorescent.