A kleptoplastidic dinoflagellate and the tipping point between transient and fully integrated plastid endosymbiosis.

ABSTRACT: Plastid endosymbiosis has been a major force in the evolution of eukaryotic cellular complexity, but how endosymbionts are integrated is still poorly understood at a mechanistic level. Dinoflagellates, an ecologically important protist lineage, represent a unique model to study this process because dinoflagellate plastids have repeatedly been reduced, lost, and replaced by new plastids, leading to a spectrum of ages and integration levels. Here we describe deep-transcriptomic analyses of the Antarctic Ross Sea dinoflagellate (RSD), which harbors long-term but temporary kleptoplasts stolen from haptophyte prey, and is closely related to dinoflagellates with fully integrated plastids derived from different haptophytes. In some members of this lineage, called the Kareniaceae, their tertiary h

SUBMITTER: Hehenberger E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6731668 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature