The Chlamydomonas genome reveals the evolution of key animal and plant functions
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a unicellular green alga whose lineage diverged from land plants over 1 billion years ago. It is a model system for studying chloroplast-based photosynthesis, as well as the structure, assembly, and function of eukaryotic flagella (cilia), which were inherited from the common ancestor of plants and animals, but lost in land plants. We sequenced the ∼120-megabase nuclear genome of Chlamydomonas and performed comparative phylogenomic analyses, identifying genes encoding uncharacterized proteins that are likely associated with the function and biogenesis of chloroplasts or eukaryotic flagella. Analyses of the Chlamydomonas genome advance our understanding of the a…
The Ectocarpus genome and the independent evolution of multicellularity in brown algae
Brown algae (Phaeophyceae) are complex photosynthetic organisms with a very different evolutionary history to green plants, to which they are only distantly related. These seaweeds are the dominant species in rocky coastal ecosystems and they exhibit many interesting adaptations to these, often harsh, environments. Brown algae are also one of only a small number of eukaryotic lineages that have evolved complex multicellularity (Fig. 1). We report the 214 million base pair (Mbp) genome sequence of the filamentous seaweed Ectocarpus siliculosus (Dillwyn) Lyngbye, a model organism for brown algae, closely related to the kelps (Fig. 1). Genome features such as the presence of an extended set of…
Membrane glycerolipid remodeling triggered by nitrogen and phosphorus starvation in Phaeodactylum tricornutum.
International audience; Diatoms constitute a major phylum of phytoplankton biodiversity in ocean water and freshwater ecosystems. They are known to respond to some chemical variations of the environment by the accumulation of triacylglycerol, but the relative changes occurring in membrane glycerolipids have not yet been studied. Our goal was first to define a reference for the glycerolipidome of the marine model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, a necessary prerequisite to characterize and dissect the lipid metabolic routes that are orchestrated and regulated to build up each subcellular membrane compartment. By combining multiple analytical techniques, we determined the glycerolipid profil…
The tiny eukaryote Ostreococcus provides genomic insights into the paradox of plankton speciation
The smallest known eukaryotes, at ≈1-μm diameter, are Ostreococcus tauri and related species of marine phytoplankton. The genome of Ostreococcus lucimarinus has been completed and compared with that of O. tauri . This comparison reveals surprising differences across orthologous chromosomes in the two species from highly syntenic chromosomes in most cases to chromosomes with almost no similarity. Species divergence in these phytoplankton is occurring through multiple mechanisms acting differently on different chromosomes and likely including acquisition of new genes through horizontal gene transfer. We speculate that this latter process may be involved in altering the cell-surface character…
Energetic coupling between plastids and mitochondria drives CO2 assimilation in diatoms.
International audience; Diatoms are one of the most ecologically successful classes of photosynthetic marine eukaryotes in the contemporary oceans. Over the past 30 million years, they have helped to moderate Earth's climate by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, sequestering it via the biological carbon pump and ultimately burying organic carbon in the lithosphere. The proportion of planetary primary production by diatoms in the modern oceans is roughly equivalent to that of terrestrial rainforests. In photosynthesis, the efficient conversion of carbon dioxide into organic matter requires a tight control of the ATP/NADPH ratio which, in other photosynthetic organisms, relies prin…
The Ectocarpus Genome and Brown Algal Genomics
Brown algae are important organisms both because of their key ecological roles in coastal ecosystems and because of the remarkable biological features that they have acquired during their unusual evolutionary history. The recent sequencing of the complete genome of the filamentous brown alga Ectocarpus has provided unprecedented access to the molecular processes that underlie brown algal biology. Analysis of the genome sequence, which exhibits several unusual structural features, identified genes that are predicted to play key roles in several aspects of brown algal metabolism, in the construction of the multicellular bodyplan and in resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Information fr…