How fast-growing algae could enhance growth of food crops

A new study provides a framework to boost crop growth by incorporating a strategy adopted from a fast-growing species of green algae. The algae, known as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, contain an organelle called the pyrenoid ...

Algal library lends insights into genes for photosynthesis

It isn't easy being green. It takes thousands of genes to build the photosynthetic machinery that plants need to harness sunlight for growth. And yet, researchers don't know exactly how these genes work.

Origins of multicellularity: All in the family

One of the most pivotal steps in evolution-the transition from unicellular to multicellular organisms-may not have required as much retooling as commonly believed, found a globe-spanning collaboration of scientists led by ...

How plants manage excess solar energy

Life on earth largely depends on the conversion of light energy into chemical energy through photosynthesis by plants. However, absorption of excess sunlight can damage the complex machinery responsible for this process. ...

Algae discovery offers potential for sustainable biofuels

James Umen, Ph.D., associate member at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, and colleagues have discovered a way to make algae better oil producers without sacrificing growth. The findings were published September 6, in ...

Right place, right time: Cellular transportation compartments

Proteins are the machinery that accomplishes almost every task in every cell in every living organism. The instructions for how to build each protein are written into a cell's DNA. But once the proteins are constructed, they ...

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Chlamydomonas

Chlamydomonas is a genus of green alga. They are unicellular flagellates. Chlamydomonas is used as a model organism for molecular biology, especially studies of flagellar motility and chloroplast dynamics, biogenesis, and genetics. One of the many striking features of Chlamydomonas is that it contains ion channels that are directly activated by light, such as channelrhodopsin. Some regulatory systems of Chlamydomonas are more complex than their homologs in Gymnosperms, with evolutionary related regulatory proteins being larger and containing additional domains .

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