Contributions of Oxyrrhis marina to molecular biology, genomics and organelle evolution of dinoflagellates
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چکیده
The flagellate Oxyrrhis marina has been the subject of numerous studies addressing diverse aspects of protist biology including feeding, motility, ecology and cell biology. In spite of the rich body of information that has been built around this organism, the molecular biology of O. marina has remained virtually unstudied until very recently. Studying the molecular biology and genomics of O. marina is not only important due to its role as a model organism and practical accessibility; current evidence shows that it occupies a basal position within the dinoflagellate lineage, making it an ideal starting point to reconstruct the evolution of several interesting characters in this diverse group and its sister group Apicomplexa. Among these features, dinoflagellates have very divergent mitochondrial genomes, a complex history of plastid evolution and unique features involving the nuclear genome and transcription. Here we review and discuss how recent findings from O. marina are contributing to shed light on these and other aspects of the evolutionary history of two important eukaryotic lineages, the apicomplexans and dinoflagellates.
منابع مشابه
Multiple protein phylogenies show that Oxyrrhis marina and Perkinsus marinus are early branches of the dinoflagellate lineage.
Oxyrrhis marina and Perkinsus marinus are two alveolate species of key taxonomic position with respect to the divergence of apicomplexans and dinoflagellates. New sequences from Oxyrrhis, Perkinsus and a number of dinoflagellates were added to datasets of small-subunit (SSU) rRNA, actin, alpha-tubulin and beta-tubulin sequences, as well as to a combined dataset of all three protein-coding genes...
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The mitochondrial genome and the expression of the genes within it have evolved to be highly unusual in several lineages. Within alveolates, apicomplexans and dinoflagellates share the most reduced mitochondrial gene content on record, but differ from one another in organisation and function. To clarify how these characteristics originated, we examined mitochondrial genome form and expression i...
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