Did an ancient chlamydial endosymbiosis facilitate the establishment of primary plastids?

ABSTRACT:

Background

Ancient endosymbioses are responsible for the origins of mitochondria and plastids, and they contribute to the divergence of several major eukaryotic groups. Although chlamydiae, a group of obligate intracellular bacteria, are not found in plants, an unexpected number of chlamydial genes are most similar to plant homologs, which, interestingly, often contain a plastid-targeting signal. This observation has prompted several hypotheses, including gene transfer between chlamydiae and plant-related groups and an ancestral relationship between chlamydiae and cyanobacteria.

Results

We conducted phylogenomic analyses of the red alga Cyanidioschyzon merolae to identify genes specifically related to chlamydial homologs. We show that at least 21 genes were transferred betwe

SUBMITTER: Huang J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2394758 | biostudies-literature | 2007

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature