Energy metabolism and adaptation to hypoxia in the non-photosynthetic green alga Leontynka
This study represents the first comprehensive analysis of microaerophilic Chlamydomonadales algae. Having retained several ancestral enzymes of the anaerobic energy metabolism, Leontynka represents a unique vantage point for understanding the evolution of the hydrogen production machinery and adaptations to low oxygen in Chlamydomonadales (and core chlorophytes in general). Our findings suggest that the plastid of non-photosynthetic Leontynka follows a similar evolutionary path as mitochondria when adapting to anaerobiosis and parallels the transition of a mitochondrion into a hydrogenosome.
Authors
- Eliška Zadrobílková
- Ivan Čepička (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4322-0754)
- Jiří Týč (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1219-6958)
- Oliver D. Caspari (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8235-0503)
- Jana Pilátová (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9630-3089)
- Pia Corre
- Tomáš Pánek
- Tomáš Bílý
- Martin Lohr
- Marek Eliáš
Institutions
- University of Bonn (DE)
- Sewanee: The University of the South (US)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- University of Ostrava (CZ)
- Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (DE)
- Charles University (CZ)
- University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice (CZ)
- Institute of Parasitology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK)
- National Institute of Public Health (LA)
- FZU ‒ Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (CZ)
Publication Details
- Journal
- BMC Biology
- Published
- 2026-01-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-026-02529-3
- Primary Topic
- Photosynthetic Processes and Mechanisms
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00