The green alga Dunaliella has long been a model organism for studying abiotic stress responses, and its commercial use for β-carotene production is still being expanded. In the context of the special issue on “The Alga Dunaliella”, we present an overview of the research status of Dunaliella. We highlight some of the existing challenges and provide an outlook for future research. Importantly, the issue of Dunaliella taxonomy has not yet been resolved. As confirmation of the species delineation still awaits a concerted community effort, we propose that reference strains should be designated for some species. Due to the existing resources, we suggest this designation for D. salina be the strain CCAP19/18. In addition, we suggest as references for the halophilic D. viridis the type strain SAG 44.89 and for the marine D. tertiolecta the type strain CCAP19/6B. Such reference strains will be required to consolidate already-reported results and to enable novel, fundamental, and applied research questions to be addressed as well as to open the door to informed strain engineering. We highlight some novel developments that are still not widely known, such as the recent publication of the genome of D. salina. In spite of these challenges, many “omics” studies are increasing knowledge at the molecular level, and the concomitant refinement of the molecular toolbox for Dunaliella species is expected to provide an understanding of the metabolic networks, which will make metabolic engineering and biorefinery approaches commercially viable.

绿藻杜氏藻（Dunaliella）长期以来一直是研究非生物胁迫反应的典范生物，其在β-胡萝卜素生产中的商业用途仍在扩展。在关于“藻类杜氏藻”的特刊中，我们概述杜氏藻的研究现状。我们重点介绍了一些现有挑战，并对未来的研究提供了展望。重要的是，杜氏藻分类学的问题尚未解决。由于对物种划界的确认仍在等待社区的共同努力，我们建议为某些物种指定参考菌株。由于现有资源，我们建议将此名称指定为D. salina是菌株CCAP19 / 18。此外，我们建议将SAG 44.89型嗜盐D. viridis菌株和CCAP19 / 6B型海洋D. tertiolecta菌株作为参考。将需要此类参考菌株来巩固已经报告的结果，并能够解决新颖，基础和应用研究问题，并为知性应变工程打开大门。我们重点介绍了一些尚不为人所知的新颖发展，例如最近发表的盐藻D. salina基因组。尽管面临这些挑战，许多“组学”研究仍在增加分子水平的知识，并随之完善杜氏藻的分子工具箱 预计该物种将提供对代谢网络的理解，这将使代谢工程和生物精炼方法在商业上可行。