
Luca MorelliUniversity of Southern Denmark | SDU · Department of Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology and Environmental Technology
Luca Morelli
PhD
Postdoctoral researcher at SDU. Specialized in plant biotechnology and focused on microalgae metabolic engineering.
About
33
Publications
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Introduction
Luca Morelli currently works in the department of green technology in the SDU university in Odense (DK). Part of the algae synthetic biology research group, his work concentrates on the application of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering on microalgae to understand the isoprenoid biosynthetic pathway and shape the synthesis of industrially relevant compounds.
Additional affiliations
Education
October 2015 - October 2017
October 2012 - September 2015
Publications
Publications (33)
Biofortification of green leafy vegetables with pro‐vitamin A carotenoids, such as β‐carotene, has remained challenging to date. Here, we combined two strategies to achieve this goal. One of them involves producing β‐carotene in the cytosol of leaf cells to avoid the negative impacts on photosynthesis derived from changing the balance of carotenoid...
Microalgae, and among them, the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum stand out with their remarkable versatility and metabolic engineering potential. Diatoms exhibit substantial variability in metabolism, photosynthetic physiology and environmental adaptation, even across the same species. These factors can affect the design and outcome of metabolic en...
Sacoglossa sea slugs have garnered attention due to their ability to retain intracellular functional chloroplasts from algae, while degrading other algal cell components. While protective mechanisms that limit oxidative damage under excessive light are well documented in plants and algae, the photoprotective strategies employed by these photosynthe...
Background
Some Sacoglossa sea slugs steal and integrate chloroplasts derived from the algae they feed on into their cells where they continue to function photosynthetically, a process termed kleptoplasty. The stolen chloroplasts – kleptoplasts – can maintain their functionality up to several months and support animal metabolism. However, chloropla...
Sacoglossa sea slugs have garnered attention due to their ability to retain intracellular functional chloroplasts from algae, while degrading other algal cell components. While protective mechanisms that limit oxidative damage under excessive light are well documented in plants and algae, the photoprotective strategies employed by these photosynthe...
Carotenoids are health-promoting plastidial isoprenoids with essential functions in plants as photoprotectants and photosynthetic pigments in chloroplasts. They also accumulate in specialized plastids named chromoplasts, providing color to non-photosynthetic tissues such as flower petals and ripe fruit. Carotenoid accumulation in chromoplasts requi...
Some sacoglossan sea slugs steal functional macroalgal chloroplasts (kleptoplasts). In this study, we investigated the effects of algal prey species and abundance on the growth and photosynthetic capacity of the tropical polyphagous sea slug Elysia crispata . Recently hatched sea slugs fed and acquired chloroplasts from the macroalga Bryopsis plumo...
Background: Some Sacoglossa sea slugs integrate intracellular chloroplasts derived from the algae they feed on, a process termed kleptoplasty. The stolen chloroplasts – kleptoplasts – can maintain their functionality up to several months and support animal metabolism. However, chloroplast longevity can vary depending on sea slug species and algal d...
The relevance of plants as food is expected to grow for a more sustainable diet. In this new context, improving the nutritional quality of plant-derived foods is a must. Biofortification of green leafy vegetables with pro-vitamin A carotenoids such as β-carotene has remained challenging to date. Here we combined two strategies to achieve this goal....
The enrichment of plant tissues in tocochromanols (tocopherols and tocotrienols) is an important biotechnological goal due to their vitamin E and antioxidant properties. Improvements based on stimulating tocochromanol biosynthesis have repeatedly been achieved, however, enhancing sequestering and storage in plant plastids remains virtually unexplor...
Plant tissues can be enriched in phytonutrients not only by stimulating their biosynthesis but also by providing appropriate sink structures for their sequestering and storage. In the case of carotenoids, they accumulate at high levels in chromoplasts naturally found in flowers and fruit. Chromoplasts can also be artificially differentiated from le...
Plant carotenoids are plastidial isoprenoids that function as photoprotectants, pigments, and precursors of apocarotenoids such as the hormones abscisic acid and strigolactones. Humans do not produce carotenoids but need to take them in the diet as precursors of retinoids, including vitamin A. Carotenoids also provide other numerous health benefits...
Carotenoids are health-promoting plastidial isoprenoids with essential functions in plants as photoprotectants and photosynthetic pigments in chloroplasts. They also accumulate in specialized plastids named chromoplasts, providing color to non-photosynthetic tissues such as flower petals and ripe fruit. Carotenoid accumulation in chromoplast requir...
Enriching plant tissues in phytonutrients can be done by stimulating their biosynthesis but also by providing appropriate sink structures for their sequestering and storage. Chromoplasts are plastids specialized in the production and accumulation of carotenoids that are naturally formed in non-photosynthetic tissues such as flower petals and ripe f...
Carotenoids are lipophilic isoprenoids with roles in photosynthesis and signaling. Dietary carotenoids are nutritionally relevant as precursors of retinoids (including vitamin A). These pigments also provide health benefits as anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory or anti-tumor agents, among other biological functions. Such health-related advantages ha...
PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTORs (PIFs) are transcription factors that interact with the photoreceptors phytochromes and integrate multiple signaling pathways related to light, temperature, defense and hormone responses. PIFs have been extensively studied in Arabidopsis thaliana, but less is known about their roles in other species. Here, we investi...
When growing in search for light, plants can experience continuous or occasional shading by other plants. Plant proximity causes a decrease in the ratio of R to far-red light (low R:FR) due to the preferential absorbance of R light and reflection of FR light by photosynthetic tissues of neighboring plants. This signal is often perceived before actu...
Carotenoids are lipophilic plastidial isoprenoids highly valued as nutrients and natural pigments. A correct balance of chlorophylls and carotenoids is required for photosynthesis and therefore highly regulated, making carotenoid enrichment of green tissues challenging. Here we show that leaf carotenoid levels can be boosted through engineering the...
When growing in search for light, plants can experience continuous or occasional shading by other plants. Plant proximity causes a decrease in the ratio of red to far red light (low R:FR) due to the preferential absorbance of red light and reflection of far red light by photosynthetic tissues of neighboring plants. This signal is often perceived be...
Significance
Carotenoids are natural pigments whose properties as provitamin A and health-promoting phytonutrients make them ideal targets for biofortification. Here, we show that plastids specialized in carotenoid overaccumulation named chromoplasts can be synthetically produced in plant tissues that do not naturally develop them. We further demon...
Carotenoids are plastidial isoprenoids that are essential in chloroplasts, where they contribute to photosynthesis and photoprotection. However, their maximum levels are detected in specialized plastids named chromoplasts, which are typically found in flowers and ripe fruits but do not naturally develop in leaves. Chromoplasts usually differentiate...
Plastids, the defining organelles of plant cells, undergo physiological and morphological changes to fulfill distinct biological functions. In particular, the differentiation of chloroplasts into chromoplasts results in an enhanced storage capacity for carotenoids with industrial and nutritional value such as beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A). Here, we...
Plants have evolved two major ways to deal with nearby vegetation or shade: avoidance and tolerance. Moreover, some plants respond to shade in different ways; for example, Arabidopsis thaliana undergoes an avoidance response to shade produced by vegetation, but its close relative Cardamine hirsuta tolerates shade. How plants adopt opposite strategi...
Plants use light as energy for photosynthesis but also as a signal of the presence of nearby vegetation. Photosynthetic tissues absorb light from the visible region (called photosynthetically active radiation or PAR, 400–700 nm), including red light (R, 600–700 nm), but transmit and reflect far-red light (FR, 700–800 nm). Both light quantity (PAR)...
Absorption of excessive light by photosymbiotic organisms leads to the production of reactive oxygen species that can damage both symbiont and host. This is highly relevant in sacoglossan sea slugs that host functional chloroplasts ‘stolen’ from their algal foods (kleptoplasts), because of limited repair capacities resulting from the absence of alg...
This work represents the analysis of the effect of the low R/FR ratio on the photosynthetic and photoprotective performances of plant with a shade tolerant or avoider behaviour. Moreover also physiologic data to support these ecological characteritics were provided
Some sacoglossan sea slugs incorporate intracellular functional algal chloroplasts (kleptoplasty) for periods ranging from a few days to several months. Whether this association modulates the photobehaviour of solar-powered sea slugs is unknown. In this study, the long-term retention species Elysia viridis showed avoidance of dark independently of...
Sacoglossa sea slugs feed on algae and maintained chloroplasts photosynthetically active inside their body. Photosynthetic organisms have evolved different ways to protect photosystem I and II (PSI and PSII respectively) from photodamage like adjusting light absorption, and the non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) processes but chloroplastic genome ca...
Questions
Questions (2)
Hi everyone! I hope someone could eventually help us.
We are recently starting to work with an EA-IRMS and we are now processing our reference material. However, we are unable to get regular results:
The standard we add to the sequence to do the standard curve gives us very divergent results from what it should be and also replicas of the same samples result in very different numbers. Any idea? do you think is a software problem? Do someone has experience with this equipment?
Thank you very much
L.
Hi everyone! i am looking for protocols to evaluate the bioaccessibility of carotenoids in plant matrix. Ideally the best would be a quite easy protocol that could be used massively in the lab, but every advice is welcome! :)
Thank you very very much!
Best
L