Characterization of nannochloropsis oceanica rose bengal mutants sheds light on acclimation mechanisms to high light when grown in low temperature

A barrier to realizing Nannochloropsis oceanica's potential for omega-3 eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) production is the disparity between conditions that are optimal for growth and those that are optimal for EPA biomass content. A case in point is temperature: higher content of polyunsaturated fatty acid, and especially EPA, is observed in low-Temperature (LT) environments, where growth rates are often inhibited. We hypothesized that mutant strains of N. oceanica resistant to the singlet-oxygen photosensitizer Rose Bengal (RB) would withstand the oxidative stress conditions that prevail in the combined stressful environment of high light (HL; 250 μmol photons m-2 s-1) and LT (18°C). This growth environment caused the wild-Type (WT) strain to experience a spike in lipid peroxidation and an inability to proliferate, whereas growth and homeostatic reactive oxygen species levels were observed in the mutant strains. We suggest that the mutant strains' success in this environment can be attributed to their truncated photosystem II antennas and their increased ability to diffuse energy in those antennas as heat (non-photosynthetic quenching). As a result, the mutant strains produced upward of four times more EPA than the WT strain in this HL-LT environment. The major plastidial lipid monogalactosyldiacylglycerol was a likely target for oxidative damage, contributing to the photosynthetic inhibition of the WT strain. A mutation in the NO10G01010.1 gene, causing a subunit of the 2-oxoisovalerate dehydrogenase E1 protein to become non-functional, was determined to be the likely source of tolerance in the RB113 mutant strain.