Tricking algae’s biological clock to remain in its daytime
setting can dramatically boost the amount of valuable compounds that these
simple marine plants can produce when they are grown in constant light.
That is the conclusion of a “proof of concept” experiment
described in the Dec. 2 issue of the journal Current Biology. The study found
that when the biological clocks of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) were
stopped in their daylight setting, the amount of several biomolecules that they
were genetically altered to produce increased by as much as 700 percent when
grown in constant light.