Paulinella

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Paulinella
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
(unranked) Rhizaria
Phylum: Cercozoa
Subphylum: Monadofilosa
Class: Imbricatea
Family: Paulinellidae
Genus: Paulinella
Species

P. bulloides[1]
P. chromatophora[2]
P. osloensis[1]
P. ovalis[3]
P. quinqueloba[1]
P. riveroi[1]
P. sphaeroides[1]
P. subcarinata[1]
P. subsphaerica[1]
P. trinitatensis[1]

Paulinella is a genus of about nine[4] species of freshwater amoeboids.

Its most famous member is the photosynthetic P. chromatophora which has recently (evolutionarily speaking)[5] taken on a cyanobacterium as an endosymbiont. This is striking because the chloroplasts of all other known photosynthetic eukaryotes derive ultimately from a single cyanobacterium endosymbiont which was taken in probably over a billion years ago in plants (and subsequently adopted into other eukaryote groups, by further endosymbiosis events). The P. chromatophora symbiont was related to the Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus cyanobacteria (sister to the group consisting of the living members of those two genera).[2] Other than the symbiont, P. chromatophora is closely related to the heterotrophic P. ovalis.[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Paulinella. Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
  2. ^ a b Birger Marin, Eva CM Nowack, Gernot Glöckner, and Michael Melkonian (2007). "The ancestor of the Paulinella chromatophore obtained a carboxysomal operon by horizontal gene transfer from a Nitrococcus-like γ-proteobacterium". BMC Evol Biol. 7 (85): 85. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-7-85. 
  3. ^ Paulinella ovalis. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
  4. ^ Eukaryotes. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
  5. ^ Laura Wegener Parfrey, Erika Barbero, Elyse Lasser, Micah Dunthorn, Debashish Bhattacharya, David J Patterson, and Laura A Katz (2006 December). "Evaluating Support for the Current Classification of Eukaryotic Diversity". PLoS Genet. 2 (12): e220. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0020220. 
  6. ^ Patrick J. Keeling (2004). "Diversity and evolutionary history of plastids and their hosts". American Journal of Botany 91: 1481–1493. doi:10.3732/ajb.91.10.1481.