Coleochaete

Coleochaete
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Charophyta
Class: Coleochaetophyceae
Order: Coleochaetales
Family: Coleochaetaceae
Genus: Coleochaete
Brebisson, 1844
Species

See text

Coleochaete is a genus of parenchymatous charophyte green algae in the order Coleochaetales.[1] They are haploid, reproduce both sexually and asexually, and have true multicellular organisation, with plasmodesmata communicating between adjacent cells. The plants form flat, 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 sister 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 have zygotic meiosis and therefore Coleochaete could not have been the literal ancestor of plants, but was possibly a member of a sister group.[4]

Species

References

  1. ↑ Delwiche, C.F.; Karol, K.G.; Cimino, M.T.; Sytsma, K.J. (2002), "Phylogeny of the genus Coleochaete (Coleochaetales, Charophyta) and related taxa inferred by analysis of the chloroplast gene rbc{L}", Journal of Phycology 38: 394–403, doi:10.1046/j.1529-8817.2002.01174.x
  2. ↑ http://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/Haseloff/biosystems/Coleochaete/ExpBenefits.htm Benefits of the Coleochaete system
  3. ↑ http://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/Haseloff/laboratory/labdocs/LabPDFs/Dupuy2006.pdf A biomechanical model for the study of plant morphogenesis: Coleocheate orbicularis, a 2D study species. Lionel Dupuy, Jonathan Mackenzie and Jim Haseloff
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Becker, B.; Marin, B. (2009), "Streptophyte algae and the origin of embryophytes", Annals of Botany 103 (7): 999–1004, doi:10.1093/aob/mcp044, PMC 2707909, PMID 19273476
  5. ↑ http://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/Haseloff/biosystems/Index_systems.htm Experimental systems for plant morphogenesis

External links