Today we know that green algae are the only eukaryotic organisms that have a hydrogenase associated with the photosynthetic electron transport chain. Our study organism is the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii . The hydA gene of Chlamydomonas encoding a Fe-hydrogenase was isolated. Transcript analysis showed that the mRNA is quickly induced during an anaerobic adaptation. Right now the algae are producing only a small amount of hydrogen.
Theoretical models suggest that the algae can evolve much more hydrogen.
Thus we investigate the physical and biochemical properties of the hydrogenase to raise the hydrogen production with the help of biotechnological methods.