Chlamydomonas reinhardtii: a protein expression system for pharmaceutical and biotechnological proteins

Recombinant proteins have become more and more important for the pharmaceutical and chemical industry. Although various systems for protein expression have been developed, there is an increasing demand for inexpensive methods of large-scale production. Eukaryotic algae could serve as a novel option for the manufacturing of recombinant proteins, as they can be cultivated in a cheap and easy manner and grown to high cell densities. Being a model organism, the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has been studied intensively over the last decades and offers now a complete toolset for genetic manipulation. Recently, the successful expression of several proteins with pharmaceutical relevance has been reported from the nuclear and the chloroplastic genome of this alga, demonstrating its ability for biotechnological applications.