Abstract
It has long been suspected that chloroplasts evolved after an endosymbiotic event involving a photosynthetic prokaryote, presumably a cyanobacterium, and a eukaryotic organism. Recent studies have provided strong evidence about the cyanobacterial nature of chloroplasts1. Since the discovery of prochlorophytes2, oxygen-evolving photosynthetic prokaryotes containing chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b and lacking phycobiliproteins, there has been speculation that these represent evolutionary intermediates between cyanobacteria and chloroplasts3. Prochloron sp., the first described prochlorophyte, proved difficult to work with because it is an obligate symbiont of marine ascidians3.Prochlorothrix hollandica, a recently isolated, freshwater filamentous prochlorophyte, is easily maintained in the laboratory3,4. Overall pigment composition and thylakoid membrane structure of P. hollandica suggest it has intermediate characteristics between cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of higher plants3. The P. hollandica psbA genes, which encode the photosystem II thylakoid protein Dl, were cloned and sequenced and the sequences compared to those reported for cyanobacteria, a green alga, a liverwort, and several higher plants. The two psbA genes present in P. hollandica encode an identical amino-acid sequence. As in all chloroplast psbA genes, there is a seven amino-acid gap near the C terminus of the derived protein relative to the protein predicted by cyanobacterial genes5, suggesting that P. hollandica is part of the lineage that led to chloroplasts after a divergence from cyanobacteria. This hypothesis is also supported by phylogenetic analysis of derived Dl amino-acid sequences from psbA genes of thirteen taxa on the basis of parsimony.
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Morden, C., Golden, S. psbA genes indicate common ancestry of prochlorophytes and chloroplasts. Nature 337, 382–385 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1038/337382a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/337382a0
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