Journal article
Algal genomes reveal evolutionary mosaicism and the fate of nucleomorphs
Bruce A Curtis, Goro Tanifuji, Fabien Burki, Ansgar Gruber, Manuel Irimia, Shinichiro Maruyama, Maria C Arias, Steven G Ball, Gillian H Gile, Yoshihisa Hirakawa, Julia F Hopkins, Alan Kuo, Stefan A Rensing, Jeremy Schmutz, Aikaterini Symeonidi, Marek Elias, Robert JM Eveleigh, Emily K Herman, Mary J Klute, Takuro Nakayama Show all
Nature | NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP | Published : 2012
DOI: 10.1038/nature11681
Abstract
Cryptophyte and chlorarachniophyte algae are transitional forms in the widespread secondary endosymbiotic acquisition of photosynthesis by engulfment of eukaryotic algae. Unlike most secondary plastid-bearing algae, miniaturized versions of the endosymbiont nuclei (nucleomorphs) persist in cryptophytes and chlorarachniophytes. To determine why, and to address other fundamental questions about eukaryote-eukaryote endosymbiosis, we sequenced the nuclear genomes of the cryptophyte Guillardia theta and the chlorarachniophyte Bigelowiella natans. Both genomes have >21,000 protein genes and are intron rich, and B. natans exhibits unprecedented alternative splicing for a single-celled organism. Phy..
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Awarded by Office of Science of the US Department of Energy
Awarded by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Awarded by Alberta Innovates
Funding Acknowledgements
The work conducted by the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute is supported by the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy under Contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231. RNA-seq data used in the paper were generated by the National Center for Genome Resources as part of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Marine Microbial Eukaryote Transcriptome Project. B. A. C. and J.F.H. were supported by a Special Research Opportunities Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada awarded to J.M.A. and M. W. G. J.M.A., P.J.K., M. W. G. and C. H. S. are members of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Program in Integrated Microbial Biodiversity. G. I. M. is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow and a Howard Hughes International Scholar. We thank R. A. Andersen (Bigelow Laboratories) for assistance with single-cell isolations, C. X. Chan for a tree-sorting PERL script, H. Gutierrez for help with SM protein family annotation, and B. Read for permission to analyse the Emiliania huxleyi genome sequenced by the JGI.