C. reinhardtii's size, short life-cycle, and extensive genetic tool set make it an ideal model organism (Harris 2001), particularly for studies such as experimental evolution from single to multicellularity (Ratcliff et al. 2013) and the genetic engineering of triacylglycerol accumulation in algae (Grossman et al. 2007; Hu et al. 2008; Siaut et al. 2011).
The mouse is a good mammalian model organism for several reasons: the availability of its complete genomic sequence, genetically defined strains and extensive genetic manipulation tools; the ease of breeding; the ability to control breeding and the phenotyping environment; and the availability of a wide array of phenotyping tests, many of which are standardised and easily applied.
Such studies will be facilitated by the availability of extensive genetic and molecular tools developed for D. melanogaster.
Other in vivo systems include the guinea pig model, used to validate anti-TB vaccines and drugs [13], and mouse models, which offer extensive arrays of genetic tools.
Although over 200 mutations were identified, the genetic, molecular and biochemical techniques to unravel the role of these mutations in the hypercellulolytic industrial T. reesei strains are somewhat problematic due to lack of extensive genetic and molecular tools.
With the extensive genetic and developmental tools available for C. elegans, this species provides an exceptionally tractable model system to address general questions about the evolution of sperm traits, as well as more specific issues pertinent to Caenorhabditis mating systems.
It has extensive genetic and developmental tools available (Kontarakis et al. 2011; Pavlopoulos and Averof 2005; Rehm et al. 2008), yet remarkably is one of the only crustaceans besides Daphnia pulex, with whole genome or transcriptome datasets available (Colbourne et al. 2011; Zeng and Extavour 2012; Zeng et al. 2011).
Despite the extensive studies on general genetic tools and omics data available for Z. mobilis, it is necessary to further develop advanced technologies that can be used in metabolic engineering.
While C. pasteurianum has recently been identified as a promising industrial producer due to its unique metabolic capabilities, it has suffered from a lack of available genetic tools for extensive strain improvement.
