| Coleochaete | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Division: | Charophyta |
| Class: | Coleochaetophyceae |
| Order: | Coleochaetales |
| Family: | Coleochaetaceae |
| Genus: | Coleochaete Brebisson, 1844 |
| Species | |
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See text |
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Coleochaete is a genus of parenchymous green algae in the family Coleochaetaceae.[1] They are haploid, reproduce asexually, they can be characterised by true multicellular organisation (with plasmodesmata), creating planar sprawling discs on solid surfaces in freshwater streams worldwide, usually as epiphytes on aquatic plants or growing on the surface of stones. They are seen as one of two most probable ancestor groups to land plant species.[2][3][4] (The second candidates being the Characeae, the issue - as of 2009 - is still not solved[4]). As they show some of the earliest and simplest features of multicellular plant growth, that makes them ideal model organisms in the field of synthetic biology. They are easy to culture and techniques that have been used to study Arabidopsis thaliana are now being applied to the Coleochaete.[5]
Coleochaete also has a sterile jacket of cells that surround the gametangia, and zygotes that are protected by a layer of sterile cells after fertilization. However, unlike plants, the Charophyceae has zygotic meiosis and therefore could not have been the literal ancestor of plants