The Chloroplast Genome

Phylogenomic analysis of the Chlamydomonas genome unmasks proteins potentially involved in photosynthetic function and regulation

“…Recently, the state of Chlamydomonas biology has been described in the Chlamydomonas Sourcebook (Harris 2009 ), an invaluable, up-to-date resource on most aspects of Chlamydomonas biology. Those processes and analyses relevant to the focus of this article include characterization of the chloroplast genome (Higgs 2009 ) and chloroplast structure and function (de Vitry and Kuras 2009 ; Finazzi et al 2009 ; Gokhale and Sayre 2009 ; Minagawa 2009 ; Niyogi 2009 ; Redding 2009 ; Rochaix 2009 ), post-translation regulation of chloroplast biogenesis (Rochaix 2001 ; Bollenbach et al 2004 ; Drapier et al 2007 ; Raynaud et al 2007 ; Eberhard et al 2008 ; Choquet and Wollman 2009 ; Goldschmidt-Clermont 2009 ; Herrin 2009 ; Klein 2009 ; Zerges and Hauser 2009 ; Zimmer et al 2009 ), and elucidation of activities and regulatory circuits that control uptake and assimilation of various macronutrients (Camargo et al 2007 ; Fernandez and Galvan 2007 ; Fernández and Galván 2008 ; González-Ballester et al 2008 ; Fernández et al 2009 ; González-Ballester and Grossman 2009 ; Moseley et al 2009 ; Moseley and Grossman 2009 ; González-Ballester et al 2010 ) and micronutrients (Merchant et al 2006 ; Tejada-Jimenez et al 2007 ; Kohinata et al 2008 ; Long et al 2008 ). Chlamydomonas also represents an important model for studies of light-driven H 2 production (Ghirardi et al 2007 ; Melis 2007 ; Posewitz et al 2009 ).…”

“…Some processes critical for the dynamics of photosynthetic function have also been elucidated; these include state transitions and non-photochemical quenching. While the discoveries relating to photosynthetic structure and function are too numerous to detail here, many are summarized in various chapters of the new Chlamydomonas Sourcebook (Choquet and Wollman 2009 ; de Vitry and Kuras 2009 ; Finazzi et al 2009 ; Gokhale and Sayre 2009 ; Goldschmidt-Clermont 2009 ; Herrin 2009 ; Higgs 2009 ; Klein 2009 ; Minagawa 2009 ; Niyogi 2009 ; Redding 2009 ; Rochaix 2009 ; Zerges and Hauser 2009 ), as well as in a number of recent review articles (Eberhard et al 2008 ; Li et al 2009 ; Grossman et al 2010 ).…”

Genetic tools and techniques for Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

“…One chloroplast is present per cell and the size of the circular chloroplast genome is ∼203.8 kb with a G+C content of ∼35 %, encoding 99 genes with five genes containing introns (Higgs 2009;Maul et al 2002). Typically ∼80-90 chloroplast genome copies, organized in ∼10-20 nucleoids of <0.2 μm in diameter (Harris 2009;Hiramatsu et al 2006), are present per vegetative cell.…”