Two oleaginous eustigmatophyte microalgae, Eustigmatos cf. polyphem and Vischeria stellata

Many problems and challenges in the modern world, such as the rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere resulting in climate change. Photosynthetic microalgae have been considered as a green cell factory for carbon dioxide sequestration and potential commercial production of bioenergy. However, there is an inverse relationship between lipid content and biomass productivity in microalgae, that is the favorable conditions (mostly nitrogen deprivation) for high lipid accumulation limit cell growth and result in low biomass production. Eustigmatos cf. polyphem and Vischeria stellate are two oleaginous eustigmatophyte microalgae, which show excellent biomass yield in nitrogen-limiting culture (especially for E. cf. polyphem), and their lipid contents can reach 71.45% and 66.79% of dry weight, respectively. Here, we sequenced the genome of two microalgae and the transcriptomes of E. cf. polyphem to investigate the genomic evolution and molecular mechanisms related to the high innate lipid accumulation rates and biomass production performance of two microalgae, especially for E. cf. polyphem.