Exploring the potential of microalgal transcription factors towards promising renewable energy feedstock generation

Oleaginous microalgal systems have received huge attention for being employed as promising renewable biological feedstocks because of their higher lipid accumulation potential. Nevertheless, the commercial application of microalgae for renewable energy production is still impractical owing to the lack of strategies for substantial lipid production without impeding microalgal biomass. Though metabolic engineering approaches have been reported to hike the lipid titre but met with mixed success due to the inherent biological intricacies that exist in lipid metabolic circuits. In this regard, engineering the expression of transcription factors (TF) exemplifies the potential strategy of overexpressing crucial transcription factors to concurrently govern multiple metabolic pathways. Despite their biotechnological potential in enhancing the microalgal metabolites, their mechanistic role in orchestrating the crucial pathways is yet to be explored. In this review, we discuss the present complexities in employing transcription factors for perturbing microalgal lipogenesis and also propose critical approaches for obviating such biological intricacies. Besides, we highlight the importance of dissecting the mechanistic role of TFs which could be extrapolated into other oleaginous organisms. Importantly, we discuss the methodologies involved in the functional dissection of TF and their target genes, thereby opening the avenue to recruiting the suitable methodology. These strategies could pave the development of technically feasible solutions to enhance the microalgal oleaginicity via transcriptional engineering towards the generation of promising renewable energy feedstocks.