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JXB Advance Access originally published online on April 2, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany 2009 60(6):1691-1702; doi:10.1093/jxb/erp052
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© 2009 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This paper is available online free of all access charges (see http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/open_access.html for further details)

RESEARCH PAPER

Phylogenetic and molecular analysis of hydrogen-producing green algae

Matthew Timmins1, Skye R. Thomas-Hall1, Aaron Darling2, Eugene Zhang1, Ben Hankamer2, Ute C. Marx2,3 and Peer M. Schenk1,*

1School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
2Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
3SRC for Functional and Applied Genomics, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia

* To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: p.schenk{at}uq.edu.au

A select set of microalgae are reported to be able to catalyse photobiological H2 production from water. Based on the model organism Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a method was developed for the screening of naturally occurring H2-producing microalgae. By purging algal cultures with N2 in the dark and subsequent illumination, it is possible to rapidly induce photobiological H2 evolution. Using NMR spectroscopy for metabolic profiling in C. reinhardtii, acetate, formate, and ethanol were found to be key compounds contributing to metabolic variance during the assay. This procedure can be used to test algal species existing as axenic or mixed cultures for their ability to produce H2. Using this system, five algal isolates capable of H2 production were identified in various aquatic systems. A phylogenetic tree was constructed using ribosomal sequence data of green unicellular algae to determine if there were taxonomic patterns of H2 production. H2-producing algal species were seen to be dispersed amongst most clades, indicating an H2-producing capacity preceded evolution of the phylum Chlorophyta.

Key words: Biohydrogen, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Chlorophyta, photobiological H2 production

Received 10 October 2008; Revised 28 January 2009 Accepted 29 January 2009


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T. Matthew, W. Zhou, J. Rupprecht, L. Lim, S. R. Thomas-Hall, A. Doebbe, O. Kruse, B. Hankamer, U. C. Marx, S. M. Smith, et al.
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[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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