Taming chlorophylls by early eukaryotes underpinned algal interactions and the diversification of the eukaryotes on the oxygenated Earth.

ABSTRACT: Extant eukaryote ecology is primarily sustained by oxygenic photosynthesis, in which chlorophylls play essential roles. The exceptional photosensitivity of chlorophylls allows them to harvest solar energy for photosynthesis, but on the other hand, they also generate cytotoxic reactive oxygen species. A risk of such phototoxicity of the chlorophyll must become particularly prominent upon dynamic cellular interactions that potentially disrupt the mechanisms that are designed to quench photoexcited chlorophylls in the phototrophic cells. Extensive examination of a wide variety of phagotrophic, parasitic, and phototrophic microeukaryotes demonstrates that a catabolic process that converts chlorophylls into nonphotosensitive 13²,17³-cyclopheophorbide enols (CPEs) is phylog

SUBMITTER: Kashiyama Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6775998 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature