Unleashing the biotechnology potential of euglenoids

The Euglena International Network (EIN) is a global consortium with the collective goal of supporting euglenoid science through collaborative and integrative omics, working across academia and industry.

Euglenoids are protists – single-celled eukaryotic organisms that don’t fit into the animal, plant, or fungi groups. Euglenoids are a diverse group of organisms and are found in a wide range of ecosystems around the world.

The EIN recently published a position paper in Biology Open, outlining the case for a concerted effort to generate high-quality reference genomes for the nearly 1,000 known species of euglenoids.

“The Euglena International Network will play a crucial role in helping to assemble specialists on euglenoids to increase our understanding of euglenoid biology and its translational applications,” said ThankGod Echezona Ebenezer, Founding President of the EIN and Bioinformatician at EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). “This could be useful to furthering our understanding of the evolution of parasitism, social gaming, developing jet fuels, or supporting human space exploration.”

Translational applications

Multiple euglenoid species have translational applications, showing great promise in the production of biofuels, food security, and even robotics. However, their enormous potential has been largely untapped due to a lack of high-quality reference genomes.

“It’s incredibly rare to find an organism so versatile it has potential roles in food production, biofuel generation, robotic engineering, and drug development – and there are many more applications possible,” said Neil Hall, Chair of the EIN Science Committee and Director of the Earlham Institute. “Producing reference genomes is the first step to understanding these remarkable organisms so we can realise their biotechnological potential.”

Euglenoid genomes present a particular sequencing challenge because they are an example of secondary endosymbiosis – they obtained their mitochondria, chloroplasts, and remnants of genetic material by engulfing other organisms. As a result, fewer than 20 species have been explored for translational potential through genomics. 

High quality reference genomes

Through generating high quality reference genomes for the known species of euglenoids, the EIN will work to:

• Understand the basic biology of euglenoids
• Understand the evolution of euglenoids
• Maximise euglenoid applications in ecological and environmental management 
• Explore, translate, and commercialise euglenoid products

Data collected by the EIN will be openly available to the scientific community through the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA). 

“Once the annotated genomes are in ENA, they can be imported into resources such as Ensembl Protists and presented in a uniform and FAIR way to research communities,” says Nishadi De Silva, Micro-organisms Project Leader at EMBL-EBI. “In Ensembl Protists, these genomes will benefit from comparisons to other species and a host of other data types already in Ensembl such as variation, transcriptomic data, and molecular interactions.” 

The Euglena International Network is an affiliated network to the Earth BioGenome Project and the International Society of Protistologists.

Find out more about Planetary Biology research at EMBL.