UTC clade | |
---|---|
Pediastrum sp. | |
Scientific classification | |
Clade: | Viridiplantae |
Division: | Chlorophyta |
Clade: | UTC clade Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach, 1828 |
The UTC clade is a grouping of Chlorophyta. [1]
It includes Ulvophyceae, Trebouxiophyceae and Chlorophyceae. [2]
A chloroplast is a type of membrane-bound organelle known as a plastid that conducts photosynthesis mostly in plant and algal cells. The photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll captures the energy from sunlight, converts it, and stores it in the energy-storage molecules ATP and NADPH while freeing oxygen from water in the cells. The ATP and NADPH is then used to make organic molecules from carbon dioxide in a process known as the Calvin cycle. Chloroplasts carry out a number of other functions, including fatty acid synthesis, amino acid synthesis, and the immune response in plants. The number of chloroplasts per cell varies from one, in some unicellular algae, up to 100 in plants like Arabidopsis and wheat.
In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA. The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding genes, other functional regions of the genome such as regulatory sequences, and often a substantial fraction of junk DNA with no evident function. Almost all eukaryotes have mitochondria and a small mitochondrial genome. Algae and plants also contain chloroplasts with a chloroplast genome.
Symbiogenesis is the leading evolutionary theory of the origin of eukaryotic cells from prokaryotic organisms. The theory holds that mitochondria, plastids such as chloroplasts, and possibly other organelles of eukaryotic cells are descended from formerly free-living prokaryotes taken one inside the other in endosymbiosis. Mitochondria appear to be phylogenetically related to Rickettsiales bacteria, while chloroplasts are thought to be related to cyanobacteria.
In molecular biology, RNA polymerase, or more specifically DNA-directed/dependent RNA polymerase (DdRP), is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reactions that synthesize RNA from a DNA template.
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a single-cell green alga about 10 micrometres in diameter that swims with two flagella. It has a cell wall made of hydroxyproline-rich glycoproteins, a large cup-shaped chloroplast, a large pyrenoid, and an eyespot apparatus that senses light.
A nuclear gene is a gene that has its DNA nucleotide sequence physically situated within the cell nucleus of a eukaryotic organism. This term is employed to differentiate nuclear genes, which are located in the cell nucleus, from genes that are found in mitochondria or chloroplasts. The vast majority of genes in eukaryotes are nuclear.
Extrachromosomal DNA is any DNA that is found off the chromosomes, either inside or outside the nucleus of a cell. Most DNA in an individual genome is found in chromosomes contained in the nucleus. Multiple forms of extrachromosomal DNA exist, and, while some of these serve important biological functions, they can also play a role in diseases such as cancer.
The Archaeplastida are a major group of eukaryotes, comprising the photoautotrophic red algae (Rhodophyta), green algae, land plants, and the minor group glaucophytes. It also includes the non-photosynthetic lineage Rhodelphidia, a predatorial (eukaryotrophic) flagellate that is sister to the Rhodophyta, and probably the microscopic picozoans. The Archaeplastida have chloroplasts that are surrounded by two membranes, suggesting that they were acquired directly through a single endosymbiosis event by phagocytosis of a cyanobacterium. All other groups which have chloroplasts, besides the amoeboid genus Paulinella, have chloroplasts surrounded by three or four membranes, suggesting they were acquired secondarily from red or green algae. Unlike red and green algae, glaucophytes have never been involved in secondary endosymbiosis events.
Ribonuclease P is a type of ribonuclease which cleaves RNA. RNase P is unique from other RNases in that it is a ribozyme – a ribonucleic acid that acts as a catalyst in the same way that a protein-based enzyme would. Its function is to cleave off an extra, or precursor, sequence of RNA on tRNA molecules. Further, RNase P is one of two known multiple turnover ribozymes in nature, the discovery of which earned Sidney Altman and Thomas Cech the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1989: in the 1970s, Altman discovered the existence of precursor tRNA with flanking sequences and was the first to characterize RNase P and its activity in processing of the 5' leader sequence of precursor tRNA. Recent findings also reveal that RNase P has a new function. It has been shown that human nuclear RNase P is required for the normal and efficient transcription of various small noncoding RNAs, such as tRNA, 5S rRNA, SRP RNA and U6 snRNA genes, which are transcribed by RNA polymerase III, one of three major nuclear RNA polymerases in human cells.
Group III intron is a class of introns found in mRNA genes of chloroplasts in euglenid protists. They have a conventional group II-type dVI with a bulged adenosine, a streamlined dI, no dII-dV, and a relaxed splice site consensus. Splicing is done with two transesterification reactions with a dVI bulged adenosine as initiating nucleophile; the intron is excised as a lariat. Not much is known about how they work, although an isolated chloroplast transformation system has been constructed.
In molecular biology, a twintron is an intron-within-intron excised by sequential splicing reactions. A twintron is presumably formed by the insertion of a mobile intron into an existing intron.
I-CreI is a homing endonuclease whose gene was first discovered in the chloroplast genome of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a species of unicellular green algae. It is named for the facts that: it resides in an Intron; it was isolated from Clamydomonas reinhardtii; it was the first (I) such gene isolated from C. reinhardtii. Its gene resides in a group I intron in the 23S ribosomal RNA gene of the C. reinhardtii chloroplast, and I-CreI is only expressed when its mRNA is spliced from the primary transcript of the 23S gene. I-CreI enzyme, which functions as a homodimer, recognizes a 22-nucleotide sequence of duplex DNA and cleaves one phosphodiester bond on each strand at specific positions. I-CreI is a member of the LAGLIDADG family of homing endonucleases, all of which have a conserved LAGLIDADG amino acid motif that contributes to their associative domains and active sites. When the I-CreI-containing intron encounters a 23S allele lacking the intron, I-CreI enzyme "homes" in on the "intron-minus" allele of 23S and effects its parent intron's insertion into the intron-minus allele. Introns with this behavior are called mobile introns. Because I-CreI provides for its own propagation while conferring no benefit on its host, it is an example of selfish DNA.
40S ribosomal protein S16' is a protein that in humans is encoded by the RPS16 gene.
The CoRR hypothesis states that the location of genetic information in cytoplasmic organelles permits regulation of its expression by the reduction-oxidation ("redox") state of its gene products.
Amphidinium is a genus of dinoflagellates. The type for the genus is Amphidinium operculatum Claparède & Lachmann. The genus includes the species Amphidinium carterae which is used as a model organism.
Chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) is the DNA located in chloroplasts, which are photosynthetic organelles located within the cells of some eukaryotic organisms. Chloroplasts, like other types of plastid, contain a genome separate from that in the cell nucleus. The existence of chloroplast DNA was identified biochemically in 1959, and confirmed by electron microscopy in 1962. The discoveries that the chloroplast contains ribosomes and performs protein synthesis revealed that the chloroplast is genetically semi-autonomous. The first complete chloroplast genome sequences were published in 1986, Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco) by Sugiura and colleagues and Marchantia polymorpha (liverwort) by Ozeki et al. Since then, a great number of chloroplast DNAs from various species have been sequenced.
Cyanidioschyzon merolae is a small (2μm), club-shaped, unicellular haploid red alga adapted to high sulfur acidic hot spring environments. The cellular architecture of C. merolae is extremely simple, containing only a single chloroplast and a single mitochondrion and lacking a vacuole and cell wall. In addition, the cellular and organelle divisions can be synchronized. For these reasons, C. merolae is considered an excellent model system for study of cellular and organelle division processes, as well as biochemistry and structural biology. The organism's genome was the first full algal genome to be sequenced in 2004; its plastid was sequenced in 2000 and 2003, and its mitochondrion in 1998. The organism has been considered the simplest of eukaryotic cells for its minimalist cellular organization.
An RNA thermometer is a temperature-sensitive non-coding RNA molecule which regulates gene expression. Its unique characteristic it is that it does not need proteins or metabolites to function, but only reacts to temperature changes. RNA thermometers often regulate genes required during either a heat shock or cold shock response, but have been implicated in other regulatory roles such as in pathogenicity and starvation.