Genetic transformation of the dinoflagellate chloroplast

Coral reefsare some of the most important and ecologically diverse marine environments. At the base of the reef ecosystem are dinoflagellatealgae, living in symbiosiswith coral. Efforts to understand the relationship between alga and coralhave been greatly hampered by the lack of an appropriate dinoflagellategenetic transformation technology. By making use of the plasmid-like fragmented chloroplast genome, we have introduced novel genetic material into the dinoflagellatechloroplast genome. We have shown that the introduced genes are expressed and confer the expected phenotypes. Genetically modified cultures have been grown for five months with subculturing, maintaining the introduced genes and phenotypes. This indicates that cells continue to divide after transformation and that the transformation is stable.