Fig. 3

Physiological characterisation of mutant strains. a Growth curves of N. oceanica NoGPAT and AoGPAT mutants. Growth of mutant strains was comparable to each other and to the wild type. All strains grew exponentially for 3 days and reached comparable biomass densities. b Maximum specific growth rate of mutant strains, calculated using data shown in a. Despite a significant ANOVA, a post-hoc test revealed no significant difference between the wild type (WT) and any mutant. c Maximum quantum efficiency of photosystem II photochemistry of microalgal cultures, averaged over 3 days of exponential growth. d Average cellular biovolume of mutant strains after 3 days of exponential growth. a–d Data shown are the mean \(\pm\) SD of N = 3 biological replicates (N = 5 for WT). c, d Relative differences compared to the WT are indicated above groups. Statistically significant differences between all groups were assessed using two-way ANOVA. In case of a significant ANOVA outcome, significant differences between means of individual groups and the wild type control were calculated using Tukey’s HSD test, and are indicated by asterisks. (*): \(p<0.05\); (**): \(p<0.01\); (***): \(p<0.001\)