The possibility of using marine diatom-infecting viral promoters for the engineering of marine diatoms

Marine diatoms constitute a major group of unicellular photosynthetic eukaryotes. Diatoms are widely applicable for both basic studies and applied studies. Molecular tools and techniques have been developed for diatom research. Among these tools, several endogenous gene promoters (e.g., the fucoxanthin chlorophyll a/c-binding protein gene promoter) have become available for expressing transgenes in diatoms. Gene promoters that drive transgene expression at a high level are very important for the metabolic engineering of diatoms. Various marine diatom-infecting viruses (DIVs), including both DNA viruses and RNA viruses, have recently been isolated, and their genome sequences have been characterized. Promoters from viruses that infect plants and mammals are widely used as constitutive promoters to achieve high expression of transgenes. Thus, we recently investigated the activity of promoters derived from marine DIVs in the marine diatom, Phaeodactylum tricornutum. We discuss novel viral promoters that will be useful for the future metabolic engineering of diatoms.