The present invention relates to transformed Euglena
and a method for producing transformed Euglena.
10 Background Art
[0002]
Euglena is a protozoan classified into both the Kingdom
Animalia and the Kingdom Plantae because it has the ability to grow autotrophically through photosynthesis in
15 chloroplasts as well as having motility with fragella. Euglena
does not have a cell wall in its cell structure, but is
characterized in that it is covered with soft tissue containing a protein called pellicle as a main component.
[0003]
20 Euglena, which has high capacity to absorb carbon
dioxide, exhibits good growth even in the presence of carbon
dioxide at a very high concentration of 4096 by performing
photosynthesis. Under anaerobic conditions, Euglena produces wax
esters by fermentation from P1,3-glucan paramylon, which is a
25 storage polysaccharide. The wax esters can be easily converted to
biodiesel. Thus, Euglena can be described as an organism that enables fuel production along with reducing carbon dioxide. [0004]
Industrial application of Euglena has also been
30 proposed in various other fields.
[0005]
A variety of attempts have been made to introduce
nucleic acid into Euglena.
For example, successes in introducing double-stranded
35 RNA into Euglena by electroporation and allowing specific mRNA to
-2-
disappear by RNAi have been reported (Non-patent Literature 1 and 2) . Additionally, various attempts have been made to transform
Euglena,