Lyophilizatin of 13 cyanobacterial cultures belonging to seven genera was attempted in a variety of suspending substances. All organisms survived lyophilization when suspended in lamb serum. Some of the organisms could be successfully lyophilized in horse serum, beef serum, fetal bovine serum, or human ascites fluid. With the exception of Nostoc muscorium, none of the organisms survived lyophil...

Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from the Antarctic green algae Pyramimonas gelidicola were analyzed to obtain molecular information on cold acclimation of psychrophilic microorganisms. A total of 2,112 EST clones were sequenced, generating 222 contigs and 219 singletons, and 200 contigs and 391 singletons from control (4 degrees C) and cold-shock conditions (-2 degrees C), respectively. The comp...

Blue-green algal mats incubated anaerobically rapidly produce large amounts of volatile sulfur compounds, including hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, and dimethyl sulfide. The major organic sulfur compound is methyl mercaptan, in contrast to previous results with marine eucaryotic algae. Light inhibited production of volatile sulfur compounds, apparently because the algae then produced O2, re...

Several species of blue-green algae were studied in thin sections with the electron microscope. Our electron micrographs confirm the view that the cell of blue-green algae is different and simpler in organization than the typical plant or animal cell. On the other hand, the general pattern of ultrastructure is the same as that found in bacteria and Streptomyces. The cell boundary is formed by a...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Consensus higher-level molecular phylogenies present a compelling case that an ancient divergence separates eukaryotic green algae into two major monophyletic lineages, Chlorophyta and Streptophyta, and a residuum of green algae, which have been referred to prasinophytes or micromonadophytes. Nuclear DNA content estimates have been published for less than 1% of the described...

As a means to understand the emergence of individuality at a new higher level, a model about the transition from undifferentiated cell-groups to multicellular organisms with germ-soma separation is developed. We argue that the increase in complexity is a consequence of the trade-offs between the two basic fitness components –fecundity and viability– as size increases. We use volvocalean green a...