Fig. 1. Experimental setup for isotope addition and growth metrics. (A) Schematic diagram of the turbidostat to visualize the changes during the isotopic study. (B) The volume of fresh media added was plotted against time to estimate turbidostatic growth rates. (C) Biomass composition of autotrophic and mixotrophic cells (mean ± SD; n = 5 for lipid, starch, and protein, and other (cell wall, other carbohydrates, and nucleic acids). Auto: autotroph; Mixo: mixotroph.

Fig. 4. Differences between autotrophic and mixotrophic conditions in labeling of TCA and CBC metabolites. Summary of (A) autotrophic and (B) mixotrophic metabolism supported by the (C) differences in labeling of central carbon metabolites. Arrow thickness in (A and B) represents flux intensity- thicker arrows indicate higher flux, while thinner arrows indicate lower flux. (D) Labeling differences in phosphoglycerate (the immediate product of photosynthetic CO2 assimilation) between autotrophs and mixotrophs during the approach to steady-state. PEP: phosphoenolpyruvate; PYR: pyruvate; GLU: glutamate; ASP: aspartate; TCA: tricarboxylic acid; PGA: phosphoglycerate; RuBP: Ribulose bisphosphate. Mean ± SD; n = 4 for autotrophy and n = 6 for mixotrophy. y-axes are scaled linearly but not labeled since they are meant to show relative differences between autotrophic and mixotrophic labeling rates. Labeling details can be found in Dataset S7.

Great work by Koley, Foley et al. (2026) on comparing autotrophic and #mixotrophic metabolism in the green alga #Chlamydomonas by using isotopically nonstationary metabolic flux analysis (INST-MFA) with 13CO2 labeling.
#Algae #Acetate #MetabolicRewiring

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